


Rhythmic

by nightsstarr



Category: DCU
Genre: AU, F/M, I can't fill this with a lot of tags because I don't even know where this is going, I guess I'll tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsstarr/pseuds/nightsstarr
Summary: Nell and Mar'i go out to celebrate Nell's birthday, but Mar'i gets a little drunker than Nell can handle. And a little drunker than Damian can handle, apparently.Or,After one evening of letting her inhibitions get the best of her, Mar'i finds herself in a relationship that's consuming her in a storm of wild emotions and intensity, and she enjoys every crazy moment of it.Rated M for descriptions of sex.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is only here because I was trying to get myself back into the writing mindset by doing some prompts. I got three prompts in (this one was rhythm) before I latched onto an idea and thought it had too much potential for a short drabble. This is my first real shot at _adult_ fiction, so keep that in mind. Hopefully this marks a return to some more steady writing, which is an exciting prospect to me!

Mar’i threw her arms around Nell, laughing.

The two of them had gone out for Nell’s birthday. Or rather, Nell’s belated birthday, as she was in school in Manhattan on the actual day. 

They were both drunk, Mar’i knew, but they were going to take an Uber back to Nell’s house so it didn’t matter.

She’d let almost half a dozen guys buy her drinks before letting it be known that she was there with a friend and completely uninterested in going home with someone, and she and Nell had done a few rounds of shots, plus drinks in between.

Nell had said a few times already that she didn’t think that someone couldn't _physically_ drink as much as Mar’i had, although to be honest Mar’i hadn’t felt like she’d had _that_ much. She was focusing on dancing with Nell and whoever else had decided to join them, and when she stood still she did feel a little dizzy, but when she was dancing she hardly noticed it.

She was just having fun.

The music was generic club music, top forties and remixes and a few throwbacks and songs from overseas, but nothing that wasn’t played at every other club like this one. Mar’i liked the way the bass made her chest vibrate, and she kept returning to a spot by the speakers even though Nell said it was too loud.

She was in the zone, dancing better than she’d ever danced before, letting the thunderous beat of each song drive the motion of her hips, dipping her shoulders when the music called for it, laughing the words to songs she knew as she danced. She felt like the colors flashing from lighting fixtures in the ceiling, which seemed random and dizzying when they first walked in, were set up in tune to the way she wanted to dance, choreographed to the music so perfectly that she she was able to dance in time with them.

At three in the morning, the DJ announced that there was only one hour left. Nell took Mar’i by the hand away from the dance floor and got their checked coats. 

“But _why_ do we have to leave?” Mar’i whined as she let Nell tossed her coat over her shoulders.

“Because,” Nell said, giggling. “I’m too drunk to take care of you any more. And I don’t want to get stuck in the leaving crowd.”

“I don’t think I’m drunk,” Mar’i said doubtfully. 

Nell laughed so hard she had to hold onto the wall to support herself. “That’s like, the twelfth time you’ve said that. And every time you say it, you’re a little bit drunker.”

“We’re going to your house now?”

Nell laughed again, and Mar’i didn’t see what was so funny but she was so glad to make her friend laugh that she laughed, too. 

“I am. You’re not. You’ll wake up the whole house and my mom will never forgive me for getting so drunk.”

Mar’i frowned. Actually, she found that she was still smiling, but she hoped that Nell could see that sad way that her smile was shaped. “Where am I going?”

“Don’t worry, I have a special ride coming to pick you up.”

Mar’i couldn’t even begin to guess what she meant, so she just allowed Nell to lead her down the street outside the club. She was tapping furiously at her phone as they walked, and Mar’i tried to collect herself not to act visibly drunk in downtown Gotham at three AM. 

Nell pulled Mar’i into a random alley, much to Mar’i’s confusion, but before Mar’i could even ask about her odd choice, a familiar swish of fabric and soft voice greeted them.

“I’m busy, you know.”

Nell slid her phone into her pocket and sighed. 

“What, superheroes are too important to do good deeds?”

Damian eyed Mar’i for a moment before turning back to Nell. “What did you do to her? She’s _swaying_.”

“I wasn’t babysitting her,” Nell said with a shrug. “We had a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” Mar’i added, nodding.

A car pulled up in front of the chinese food place next to the alley. 

“That’s my Uber,” Nell said, and she hugged Mar’i on her way out of the alley. “Have fun.”

“Tt. You owe me for this,” Damian muttered. 

“Do I?” Nell asked as she got in the backseat of the sedan. 

Nell left, and suddenly Mar’i felt self-conscious. She was pretty drunk--now that she wasn’t constantly moving or joking around with Nell, she could feel it--and Damian seemed displeased.

Damian pressed the call button on his belt and looked at her. He studied her, as though he wasn’t sure what she would do. “The bike will be here in a second.”

Mar’i stared at him. “The bike?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Is that not suitable?”

“Um,” she said, and she could feel her face getting hot. “I’m a little dizzy, I don’t know.”

“You’re not going to throw up, are you?” he asked quickly, and he sounded half concerned, half disgusted, maybe. It was hard for her to analyze him with her head spinning.

“No, I feel great. Just dizzy.”

The bike pulled up obediently at the entrance to the alleyway, and Damian stood for a minute, thinking. He mounted the bike and motioned for her to join him.

She approached it doubtfully, as though it were a horse ready to kick, and she threw a leg over the back of it, none too gracefully.

“No,” Damian said, and he took her wrist and pulled her to his side. She didn’t understand, so he pulled her hips in front of him and he scooted back. He meant for her to sit in front of him.

The idea made her stomach flutter, and for a moment she wondered if she might actually throw up. But it was only excitement and a little nervousness.

He helped her onto the bike and pulled her firmly onto the seat. She was almost sitting on his lap. She giggled a little, losing her balance but kept in place by Damian’s arms on either side of her.

“I’ll try to take it slow,” he said as he started the bike, and he placed his mouth next to her ear so she could hear him over the engine. As he spoke, his breath stirred her hair and gave her wonderful shivers down her spine.

Mar’i found that keeping her eyes closed helped the dizziness. She was concentrating on Damian’s arms protectively encircling her as he grasped the handlebars, the way his body shifted as they turned, the sound of his cape flaring out behind him as they drove. The dizziness made it difficult to fully enjoy, but she was having a nice ride.

She opened her eyes when she felt the bike dip and then heard the sound of the engine echoing all around them. They’d entered one of the many tunnels which led to the Batcave. Mar’i was having a bit of a sensory overload, with the noises and the way her drunk body was processing moving on the bike. When she guessed they were almost there, she squeezed his arm. 

“Damian, I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said, although he probably couldn’t hear her. 

He did recognize that something was wrong, though, and he pulled the bike to the side of the tunnel wall and slowed to a stop. “Are you okay?” he asked, and he dismounted the bike, leaving her sitting on it alone. 

“Mm-hmm,” she answered, keeping her eyes closed. She felt the handlebars keep poking her as she swayed in the seat, so she picked her leg up and swung it around so that both her legs were on one side of the bike, although just doing that took a great deal of effort. As she sat that way, the dizzy, out-of-body feeling that she’d been enduring was starting to subside, and she peeked one eye open to look at Damian.

He was leaning close to her, concerned, one arm on the body of the bike as he peered down at her. “Are you going to throw up?” he asked again, and she scoffed, annoyed.

“I might, if you ask me that one more time,” she said sarcastically. 

Damian rolled his eyes. He straightened his back, putting more distance between them, deciding that she must be fine if she could snap at him.

“I’m not going to throw up,” she informed him, more calmly, after a few moments of deep breathing that helped her feel better. “It was more of a head thing than a stomach thing.”

“You shouldn’t drink if it just makes you sick,” he said. She could hear the judgment in his voice, but she wasn’t offended by it. Damian had never had a drink in his life before, and he never planned to. His view of alcohol was so obstinately negative that it was a little phobic.

“I never go out, and even when I do I hardly ever drink. We were celebrating.”

“Yes, and now you’re paying for it.”

“I don’t know, I’m still having fun,” she said, and she observed him. It was probably approaching the time that he should relinquish the Robin uniform to someone else, but it looked so handsome on him. He’d modified it over the years, so it did look good on someone his age, and she’d grown accustomed to seeing it on him, and she felt a pang of sadness at the thought of losing him in it.

It wasn’t just the suit that was handsome on him. The green of his eyes was much duller than the green of his suit, but somehow it made them stand out more. His skin tone varied depending on the month, but in October he still held a bit of the tan he accumulated over the summer, and his eyes contrasted nicely with it. He kept his hair short and his face clean shaven, although she’d glimpsed him with the beginnings of a beard enough times to imagine how it would look on him.

“Mar’i,” he said, and she realized that she had gotten completely lost in her thoughts. 

“Mm-hmm?”

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

She only nodded, and she almost got lost in her own thoughts again, but instead of thinking at all she said, “Come here.”

A question in his eyes, he leaned down again. He probably thought something was wrong with her.

She raised her head and kissed him. She felt him tense up, but she was vaguely surprised to find that he didn’t pull away. Encouraged, she became emboldened, and she adjusted herself so that the kiss was deeper.

“Mar’i,” he said, and he ducked his head away from her.

“Yes?”

He sighed quietly. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and she had to stop herself from laughing at her own answer. “But that has nothing to do with this.”

“I find that very unlikely,” he told her, frowning.

“I’m completely serious,” she said, and she pushed herself into a standing position, still leaning heavily on the bike. “I really like you,” she said, and she took his wrists and pulled him so he was facing her. “I have for a little while.”

She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, and she allowed herself to be completely delighted when he kissed her again. He pushed her into the bike, devouring her with his eagerness. The intensity surprised her--it was as if he’d had feelings for her that had gone unvocalized until now. The thought seemed very un-Damian, but she couldn’t imagine where else this was coming from.

She hadn’t meant to, but she was still half drunk and not really in control of her body, and she rolled her hips against him. It felt really good to do, and he didn’t really react to it, so she did it again.

He broke the kiss again. “That’s enough,” he said, and she thought that he didn’t quite sound angry but there was a definite edge to his voice. 

She didn’t speak. She didn’t really want to apologize, although she knew that she shouldn’t have done that. She desperately wanted to push for more--in her mind she could envision them fucking right there on the bike against the wall--but she knew that he was uncomfortable. She dully wondered what the chances were that she was so drunk that she wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

“I can make it inside myself,” she said, and her voice sounded timid to her own ears, although she hadn’t meant it that way.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Damian said, sounding thoroughly annoyed. “Of course I’ll bring you to your room.”

“Okay,” she said, and she allowed herself to smile as butterflies flitted around her stomach again.

He drove the bike the short distance into the Batcave, dismounted, and helped Mar’i up the winding stairs into the Manor. She lived at home in Bludhaven with her parents, but she spent so many nights at the manor that she had her own bedroom with her own sheets on the bed and her own clothes in the dressers. 

He hovered in the threshold as she pulled a pair of pajamas out of the dressers and then sat on her bed. She was still drunk, although she was sobering up a bit. She was certainly less drunk than she had been in the tunnel. “Thank you,” she said, and she tried to sound as sincere as possible.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, and she didn’t know if he meant ‘you’re welcome’ or if he really didn’t want her to bring it up.

Because she was still drunk she allowed silence to settle awkwardly between them, and then she said, “Hey, Damian?”

He didn’t answer, but he cocked his head in reply. 

“Do you think I could get one more kiss?”

He froze, and he must have felt unbearably awkward because he dropped his gaze from hers.

“You know, on the off chance that I’m blackout drunk right now and I don’t remember any of this in the morning.”

He raised his eyes back to hers and he said, “And what if you aren’t?”

It was a very serious question, and they both would probably be thinking about it when he left, but she bit her lip and said, “Then a goodbye kiss?”

He held her gaze this time, which surprised her, and he slowly approached her. He was standing over her as she sat in bed, scared that if she moved too suddenly it would scare him off, like a frightened deer.

He leaned down and kissed her, and as he did she was hyper aware that she was still dressed in her going-out clothes, which were, bluntly, slutty, and also that they were in her bedroom, and she was in her bed, and lastly that she was drunk, and that every movement of his mouth against hers made butterflies radiate out from her stomach into her bloodstream. 

Cautiously, she raised her hand to the nape of his neck, where his close-cropped hair poked sharply against her fingertips. He allowed her this small gesture, but he did not reciprocate by touching her.

They broke when Mar’i simply couldn’t stand not pulling him into her bed and having her way with him any longer, and he lingered, leaning close to her for several seconds after. 

“Goodnight, Mar’i,” he said, still very much in her personal space.

She leaned back, putting some space between them. “Goodnight, Damian,” she said, and for some reason she felt very sad as he exited her room without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

Mar’i was _thirsty._

Her mouth was dry and she felt like she hadn’t drank anything in days.

She pushed herself into a sitting position and that was when the headache hit.

It felt like she’d been hit in the front of her head with a baseball bat or something. Moving hurt. Focusing her eyes on anything hurt. Being thirsty hurt. 

It wasn’t until she’d had these two complete thoughts that the next thought formed:

She wasn’t in her own room. 

She was in the room she had at the manor, which she decorated a bit like her room at the house in Bludhaven but she didn’t even know what she had to wear here. 

It occurred to her that she had no idea what time it was. At home, she had a clock next to her bed with the time on it, but she never thought to get one for her room here. She usually just checked the time on her phone. She fished it out of her blankets and winced as the screen shone too brightly and her headache intensified.

12:53

She was confused for a moment. She never slept past 9:00. How could she have thrown off her internal clock so badly that she’d slept most of the day away?

That was the moment it all came rushing back to her. Nell’s birthday, the motorcycle, the kissing. 

The violent way the memories struck her was enough to trigger her headache, and she needed to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment as a wave of pain crested.

She needed to go. What happened between her and Damian was so… So what? Weird? She didn’t feel then that it was weird, and she didn’t feel now that it was weird, either. So… good? It did feel good, in a way, but it also felt really, really bad. She shouldn’t have thrown herself at him like that. She didn’t even know she wanted to. 

She had to get dressed and get out of there.

She had no idea what time Damian usually got up after patrolling all night. Was he in the manor now?

The desire to throw the covers over her head and just stay in bed all day was so tempting. She could sneak out when everyone had gone out for the night.

She had things to do. She needed to catch the train back home and study for an exam she had on Monday. And, most importantly, she needed to get something to drink, like, _right_ now.

She rummaged through the drawers for clean clothes to throw on. She hadn’t restocked her clothes in a while. The outfit she ended up throwing together was denim shorts, sneakers she used for the rock climbing wall that bruce had in the cave, thin, black tights, a v-neck, and a thin cardigan. Kind of a mish-mosh of different things, but it would do. She considered skipping the tights, but she had no socks and it was late October, so it had to be a little cold out.

Next, she snuck into the bathroom and found a hair elastic in the cabinet under the sink. Her hair was a mess, so she pulled it back into a puffy ponytail.

If she could just grab something to drink and maybe see if there was something fast to eat, she could be out of here in ten minutes. 

“Alfred!” Mar’i gasped as she entered the kitchen. 

Alfred paused before turning to her. “Miss Mar’i? I had no idea you were here, my goodness.”

“Yeah,” she said nervously, “it was kind of a last minute thing.”

“I just finished preparing lunch,” he said, and he gestured to a plate with sandwiches on it. “I made extra, because you never know how much one person will eat in this house. Please, help yourself.”

Even Alfred’s soft voice was pounding against the inside of here head. Maybe a sandwich would help her feel a little better. 

“Thank you, Alfred,” she said, trying to sound grateful. “I can’t stay, I have to get home. I have some studying to do.”

“Of course,” Alfred said, smiling. He was very proud of Mar’i for taking some time off from the family business to pursue a degree in biochem. Her desire to graduate from grad school was something that no other member of the family had expressed. They’d all gone into something not requiring a degree, like her father joining the police force in Bludhaven, or just skipped the process entirely, like Tim and restarting what was his father’s old business.

“Where do you have aspirin, Alfred? I have some headache,” she said, and she suddenly felt ashamed of her hangover. She would never want Alfred to see her as trashed as she had gotten last night, and she felt like she was doing something wrong by skirting around it.

“Top drawer over the sink, next to the cups,” Alfred instructed her. “Did you just wake up, Miss Mar’i?”

“Yeah, I had a pretty late night,” she said, and she felt her face grow warm. 

She swallowed the aspirin with water from the tap and grabbed a sandwich off the dish. Taking a bite into it, she realized something odd--the sandwich was made up of cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce, and some of Alfred’s homemade salad dressing had been spread on the bread. Completely lacking lunchmeat. 

“Um, Alfred, who were these sandwiches for?”

“Master Damian,”Alfred answered, sounding confused. “He should be home any minute now.”

Mar’i nearly inhaled the bite of sandwich she’d taken. “Home?! But--didn’t he work last night? What’s he doing going into work this morning?”

“Master Bruce is going to be at the office late tonight, so Master Damian covered for him this morning so Master Bruce could sleep. Master Damian will be going to bed for the first time in almost thirty-six hours when he comes home. Is something the matter, Miss Mar’i?”

“Alfred, thank you for the sandwich and the painkillers,” Mar’i said, and she kissed him on the cheek before exiting the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I’m in a rush!” she called over her shoulder as an explanation for poor Alfred. 

If she left _right now,_ then she should be able to leave before ever having to cross paths with Damian. 

She reached for the heavy front door of the manor, but as she did the lock spun. She drew her hand back quickly, as though the doorknob had burned her. 

The door swung open and standing on the other side was none other than Damian. 

He was startled by her presence, and he let his hand drop to his side, keys jingling. Mar’i stared at him as he stared at her.

“Good morning,” she blurted when she couldn’t stand another millisecond of silence. 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Good morning? It’s one thirty in the afternoon. Are you just waking up?”

She tried to think of a way to answer that didn’t make her look stupid, but she couldn’t think of anything.

“Are you going out like that?” he asked before she had a chance to even stutter out an answer.

“What?” She glanced down at her outfit. “It’s not like I have my whole wardrobe here,” she answered defensively. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he said calmly. “Your eyes.”

“Oh, X’hal. Dammit,” she swore, and she raised a hand to her throat, where her pendant usually hung. She didn’t remember taking it off last night. Maybe it was in her bed.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s probably in my room somewhere,” she said. “I’d better go find it.”

“I’ll help you look for it,” he offered immediately. 

“Um,” she stammered, and she bit her lip awkwardly.

“I’m sure that I was more aware of your surroundings than you were last night,” he said as an explanation, and he finally stepped through the threshold to stand next to her. 

“Okay,” she said. What else was she going to do? She was trying to avoid seeing him, not blow him off when he was trying to be nice.

“So,” Damian began casually, “how are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” Mar’i answered. He tensed up as they walked, and she got the feeling that he thought she was angry with him, so she elaborated. “Hungover like you wouldn’t believe. I just took some painkillers.”

Avoiding eye contact, Mar’i slipped into her room and immediately dropped onto her hands and knees to peer under the bed. She could feel Damian watching her and it made her heart flip, but she ignored it.

“Don’t see it under here!” she called, hoping that Damian would busy himself with _something_ once he realized that she might catch him, but when she stood again he was still watching her. Knowing that he was wondering if she remembered the previous night also meant that she knew that he would want to talk about it, which was the _last_ thing she wanted to do. She silently cursed herself for losing her pendant.

He was still watching her when she turned to face him. “Do you want to check the bed, and I’ll check my drawers? Maybe I dropped it when I was getting changed or something.” As she said it, she realized that talking about getting changed might make Damian picture her getting changed, so she quickly spun around and yanked a random draw open.

Damian did at least pretend to help by pulling back the sheets and running his hand over the blankets, checking for any bumps. “I don’t believe it’s in here,” he said. His voice seemed calmer than usual to Mar’i, and she wondered if it was because he was exhausted. 

“Alfred told me you were just at work,” Mar’i said as she turned from her dresser. “You can go to sleep. I’ll find it.”

Damian shrugged. “I’m used to it. I feel fine. Perhaps it’s in the Cave.”

Mar’i blinked at him. “The Cave?” Worry clawed at her chest. The cave was huge, and with everyone coming and going, it could be anywhere. “Wouldn’t you have noticed that it was gone?”

He paused before answering, “I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly last night.” Mar’i’s heart flipped again, and she felt her face begin to heat up. “I know you had it on when you left the club,” he said.

At least her identity was safe. For now.

“Okay, let’s check the Cave,” she said, not seeing any other option.

Her headache was marginally better, but her eyes adjusting to the darkness of the cave, then adjusting again as Damian turned on the lights, made her feel a little nauseous.

They approached Damian’s bike, the sight of which made Mar’i blush, and he inspected it. “Look,” he said, and he crouched down to pick something off the body of the bike. “Here’s the chain.”

“Oh, X’hal,” Mar’i said, forlorn. “The hologram projector could be anywhere.”

“I may have a good idea as to where it might be,” Damian said. 

She looked up at him questioningly, and as an answer he tipped his head toward the tunnel through which they entered last night. 

Had Mar’i angered X’hal? Why was she being punished? She felt her heart rate kick up and she swallowed to try to calm herself. “You think?”

Damian shrugged. “It’s where we spent the most time yesterday, so logically…”

“Right,” she agreed. She turned from him to begin walking toward the tunnel, but he grabbed her shoulder to stop her. 

“Get on,” he said, and he was already mounting the motorcycle when she turned. 

“What?” Her heart jumped in her throat at the sight of him. He was wearing a gray suit, and he looked really good in it. It made his skin look dark and his eyes look bright. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d loosened the tie and unbuttoned just the top button of his shirt, he would look like he was about to go to work. The idea of sharing a ride with him after last night made her a little weak, but seeing him like that, she could barely feel her legs. “It’s like, a five minute walk,” she protested.

He frowned at her. “I _am_ tired,” he said, and he did sound it. 

“I thought you were used to it.”

“I’m used to being tired, yes.” He started the engine. “Get on, Grayson.”

She could probably just fly next to him, but she wasn’t sure where they were going and she’d be much faster than him. She sighed and gave in. 

Sitting behind him instead of locked between his arms was actually less comfortable for her, but there was no way they’d be doing a repeat performance of the previous ride. 

“Mar’i,” he said over the purr of the engine, sounding exasperated, “you need to hold onto me.”

X’hal, save her. “I know,” she snapped, and she pressed herself against him and locked her arms over his waist.

This was _bad_ , she thought as he took off. He smelled so good and she could feel his abdominal muscles even as she was trying to touch him as little as possible. She vaguely wondered how many women in Gotham City--hell, how many women in the US--would kill to be in her position right now. 

He slowed the bike to a stop gently and dismounted. He offered her his hand to help her off, and she took it. She was almost shaking. The lighting, the way it tossed shadows over his face, the butterflies in her stomach. Everything was so reminiscent of last night. 

The bike leaning on the kickstand, he gave her his full attention. She wasn’t sure what he expected her to do, and her eyes kept darting down to his mouth.

“Some light, please,” he said. 

“Oh! Right, right,” Mar’i said, and she was so nervous she almost giggled. A starbolt flared to life in her hand, and she swept it against the wall. 

Damian watched her for a moment, looking almost amused.

 _“What?”_ she demanded, growing exasperated. He was making her do all of this stuff when he had to know that she had been trying to avoid him, and he was just staring at her. Wasn’t he even going to help her look? It was his idea to come down here, anyway.

“We were on that side,” he said, gesturing to the opposite wall. 

“Oh.” She was so surprised that she dropped her hand to her side, throwing shadows across the dimly-lit walls. She hurried to the opposite wall and he followed her, scanning the ground. 

“You don’t remember, do you?” He was trying to keep his tone casual, but Mar’i could hear an edge in his voice. 

“I _do,_ ” she said, trying to keep her own voice light. “I just wasn’t paying attention much.”

“You weren’t paying attention?” he repeated, and Mar’i had to fight to keep walking ahead and pretend that they were talking about something casual.

“I guess I had _something else_ on my mind at the time,” she said. She meant for the words to be sarcastic, but they came heavily out of her mouth and they both fell silent. 

“You seem very nervous,” he observed, and that made her stop walking. If he were a normal person, he would’ve bumped into her, but he’s Damian Wayne and he always knows what’s going to happen next so he didn’t.

Mar’i extinguished the starbolt. She really didn’t want to be armed when they talked about this. Spinning to face him, she said, “Why are you making me do this?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “I’m not making you do anything.”

“You are so. I was going to make a break for it so that we could stew in our own awkwardness for a few weeks and then never talk about it again. That’s what _normal people_ do,” she snapped.

“I feel that it’s important to our relationship that we feel comfortable around each other,” he said. “And you clearly don’t feel comfortable around me right now.”

X’hal, she could every beat of her heart in her chest. “Our relationship?” she demanded.

“Our relationship as vigilantes is what I was referring to,” he said, and he narrowed his eyes at her, trying to observe her in the dim light. “Are you alright?”

“X’hal, I don’t know,” she said, and she leaned her back against the wall of the tunnel and leaned her forehead against her hand. Maintaining eye contact with him was making it to hard to explain herself. She wished that she had left her hair hanging down so that she would have something to shield herself from his eyes, which never missed a single detail. “I’m sorry about yesterday, I shouldn’t have done that. And now I feel awkward.”

“It’s an awkward situation, I suppose,” he said. 

She gaped at him incredulously. That was all he had to say?

After an uncomfortable silence that lasted only a few seconds but was way too long, Damian said, “I’m the one who should be sorry. You were intoxicated, and I should not have engaged in any sort of activity like that with you.”

Mar’i laughed a humorless laugh. “It’s hardly your fault. I threw myself at you.”

“I do feel as though I’ve--I’ve violated you,” he said, and he spat the words like poison. “No wonder you feel awkward.”

“Damian,” she said, and her heart broke a little. Maybe she took her embarrassment a little too far. She didn’t want him to look back on their kisses and feel like he’d ruined something, when in reality it was something she treasured. Admitting that would make it awkward, though, so instead she said, “It’s not like we had sex.”

He audibly swallowed. “I would have, if you had asked,” he admitted.

X’hal. Now that was _interesting_. And _bad_. 

“Damian,” she again, very slowly. She wasn’t sure what she was about to say, and she wasn’t sure that she should even say anything. “I really liked… what we did. The… the kissing. The issue that I’m having isn’t about whether or not I _wanted_ it. It’s that I think it’s a bad idea.”

He was silent for a moment, but then he moved in front of her to look at her while they talked. “You wanted it?” he asked, and he searched her face for sincerity as she answered. 

_X'hal._  

Why did he have to put it like that? Mar’i paused, but decided that it was more important to her that he knew that he didn’t do anything wrong than avoiding any further embarrassment. “X’hal, Damian, I--yes, I wanted it.”

He nodded to himself as she felt her face heat up, and she could tell he was deep in his own thoughts. His eyes, which seemed far off, focused on her once more. “Yet you don’t wish to kiss me again.”

“X’hal, Damian,” she said, and she found that she was breathless. “It’s not about wanting or not wanting. It’s about knowing that it’s a bad idea.” He looked unconvinced, so she hurried to explain herself. “My father,” she said weakly, and she was suddenly aware that he was standing so close to her. “And your father… Uh, I guess it’s mostly my father… And, you know, we go a long time without seeing each other, and I’m in school…”

“I’d like to kiss you,” he murmured, and her heart flipped and her stomach flopped. 

She felt as though her heart was about to beat about out of her chest. This whole thing was ridiculous, she should just say no and be done with it. But their kiss yesterday was so _good_ and his eyes seemed so much darker than usual and the intensity in them was so fucking sexy.

She nodded, as she found that her voice had failed her momentarily, and she swallowed and then she said, “Okay.”

And then they were kissing. His hands found her waist under her cardigan immediately, before their mouths even connected. He was forceful but gentle at the same time, pressing her against the tunnel wall but not pushing her into it. His mouth was insistent but soft, and he brought one hand away from her waist up toward her back to play with the long pieces of curls coming out of her ponytail. 

She had been planning on a sort of good-bye kiss, short and sweet, but she was melting under his fiery intensity. She brought a hand up to his cheek and traced his jaw down to the collar of his shirt. He’d undone one of the buttons and loosened his tie, but she wanted to touch his skin. She popped two more of the buttons and yanked the knot of his tie downward. 

She slid her hands under the fabric, raking her nails over his skin. He hissed at the action, breaking their kiss, and she met his eyes with a mischievous look. He looked so good, with his face flushed, tie loose and off to the side, his chest peeking through his open shirt. While he was momentarily distracted from her mouth, she pressed her lips against his neck, eliciting a groan and a roll of his hips. She could feel the effect she was having on him. Encouraged, she trailed her mouth lower, over his collar bone, below that and over his heart.

He stopped her by taking her ponytail and yanking, none too gently. She winced as he forced her head upward. He trailed soft kisses over her neck, letting go of her hair to rest his hand on her hip again, and suddenly he sucked on a soft piece of skin _hard._

“X’hal, Damian,” Mar’i gasped. He mistook her meaning and continued kissing her neck until she pushed him back. “Damn,” she said, and she rubbed her hand over the sore spot. “Did you leave a mark?”

It took him a moment to realize what she meant, and he glanced down at the offending area. “Well, yes--”

“Oh, X’hal! My parents are going to see it and they’ll lecture me, then they’ll ask who I was with,” she muttered, upset. 

“Just wear a sweater with a high neck,” he mumbled, sounding put off.

“I’m a half alien who lights star energy with her hands. I don’t _wear_ sweaters at home!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes cast down. 

She sighed. “No, I’m sorry,” she said, and she smoothed out his suit jacket, which she’d knocked off his shoulders. “Just… If you’re going to do that, do it someplace that no one else can see it.”

He swept his eyes over her slowly. “I can do that.”

She watched as he buttoned up his shirt and fixed his tie. He looked as put-together as ever. 

“So there’s no confusion, I have no problem with you leaving them on me. My collar will hide it.”

Mar'i leaned her back against the wall once more and looked him over. What, exactly, did this mean for them? All she knew was the she wanted to kiss him, and by some stroke of luck, whether good or bad, he wanted to kiss her, too. And now that they knew the feeling was mutual, it seemed stupid to keep kicking it aside. 

“Come on," she said, dragging her eyes away from him toward the floor. "We still need to find my pendant." She paused as she scanned the tunnel. Every square inch of it looked the same as the rest. “Isn’t this the spot we were in yesterday?”

“Technically, that was today,” Damian corrected her. “And it may not be the exact spot. I tried to get as close as I could remember, but I may be further down.”

Mar’i lit another starbolt and this time they both focused on trying to find her pendant. It took a few minutes of backtracking and careful scouring, but Mar’i finally found it when the light glinted off her starbolt in just the right way that it stood out to her. 

The motorcycle ride back was much more comfortable. Mar’i’s heart was still doing acrobatics, but she was no longer so jittery. 

He dismounted the bike in the Cave proper and before he allowed her to come off, he caught her in another kiss. 

“Damian,” she said breathlessly. Now that they’d both established they were having fun kissing, it was getting hard to _stop_. “You know, all the things I said before were true. I’m really enjoying your company, but we need rules.”

He furrowed his brow at her. “That’s absurd.”

She sighed. “Maybe I’m being a little irrational, but I’m not ready for dating right now. With you or anyone, but I’m not going to lie, I’m not ready to date you right now.”

He visibly deflated and Mar’i’s heart shuddered. 

“But I really am looking forward to seeing you again,” she said, and Damian furrowed his brow. 

“You’re confusing me,” he said bluntly, frowning. 

“I’m confused, myself,” she said. “It’s just… I really think we have some kind of connection, and I want to explore that. I’m just not looking for you to be my boyfriend.”

Damian scowled. “You’re not telling me what that means. You want to see other people?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I’m so busy with school, I don’t even know how much time I’ll have to see you. It’s not that, it’s just…” She faltered in her explanation. What did she want? “I want to know that you’ll be here for me when I need you without actually going on dates or acting like a couple. Does that make sense?”

“No,” he said, but he offered her his hand and helped her off the bike. “But as you know, I have my own busy schedule with Wayne Enterprises and this,” he said, gesturing to the entire Batcave. “I think what you’re describing is a relationship that will suit both of us.”

“Right,” Mar’i said, and she bit her lip. “But it’s important to me that it’s low-key.”

“Low-key?” Damian repeated dully, and Mar’i could tell that the phrase held no meaning for him.

“Like, inconspicuous. For now.”

“Very well,” he said. “For now.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mar'i pays Damian a visit at Wayne Enterprises.

Mar’i tapped her pencil against her notebook. She was bored. Chem, she liked. Chem was about discovery and learning how elements came together to form this world and many others. 

Calculus, on the other hand. Quite the opposite.

It wasn't that she was bad at math. Shed been doing complicated math problems since she was a toddler. The education system on Tamaran was pretty different from the way they treated kids on Earth.

It wasn't like she could transfer her credits across the galaxy, though, so here she was.

“Mary,” her professor called, and Mar’i winced. Her professor was very against students looking bored in her class, and she was known to call on students when she thought they weren't paying attention. “Mary, please answer part D.”

Fuck. She hadn't been paying attention for like, 15 minutes now. She wasn't even sure she was on the right page. Assuming she was, and part D was on the next page, which she quickly flipped to (completely giving away that she wasn't paying attention at all), then the answer would be…

“C,” Mar’i said quickly, trying to look innocent.

The professor scowled at her. “Yes. You should be taking notes, Miss Grayson.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mar’i said.

Once the professor was absorbed into her lecture once more, Mar’i picked up her phone. She'd shoved it under the cover of her textbook, but now the coast was clear.

It had been five days since she'd last seen Damian. She always had a three day weekend because of the way her classes were set up, so she was considering making an appearance as Nightstar tonight. 

Her father was initially very against Mar’i joining her grandfather as a vigilante. Mar’i tried to be respectful of her father’s wishes--he himself used to be Nightwing until he had an argument with Bruce and he up and quit. He gave up the vigilante business to become a detective in Bludhaven, where he'd been happy ever since.

Mar’i had always known about her grandfather’s other job, as her father tactfully called it, as Batman. When she was a child, she was only ever allowed to see her grandfather if her parents were there. After a few years, he stopped coming to Bludhaven to see her. She didn't find out until she was in high school that it was because he’d been in the hospital. He had a heart attack or something--she never really found out exactly what the health issue was. Bruce was very private about it.

That was around the time Damian came into Bruce’s life. Apparently Talia didn't want Bruce to die without having met his son, so Damian went to live with Bruce suddenly. It was a big upset in the family, and Mar’i remembered her father being very upset that he was taking on another child Robin. 

Her parents were very against Mar’i going to Gotham University. Her father didn't want her in or near Gotham, and he tried to convince her to go to Rutgers, which did have a good biochem program. But Mar’i had always known she wanted to go to GU. It was her secret plan, from the time that she was little, to come back into her grandfather’s life. She put her foot down against her parent’s wishes, told them she was going to be an adult and she could make her own decisions now. After respecting their wishes for years, she finally saw her grandfather again.

That was when she met Damian for the first time. She was pretty sure he hated her in the beginning.

Mar’i had flown herself from her summer orientation at Gotham University to the manor and knocked on the door. Alfred was shocked to see her, and he even let her hug him. He ushered her into Bruce’s office, where he had been in the middle of speaking to Damian. She interrupted them and threw her arms around Bruce. There were tears.

After that, Damian just avoided her. At one point, Bruce must have said something to him, because he would almost compulsively say hello to her if she was in a room he entered.

Until, that is, around May of this past year, when Mar’i decided she wanted to become Nightstar. She'd had plenty of training on Okaara, something her mother insisted on, bless her, but even so, Bruce made her go through a rigorous three-month training program.

That was when she really started becoming friendly with Damian. He was the one who actually taught her most of the things she didn't already know. They'd spar almost daily. At first, she found it annoying that he was constantly correcting her, but after about the second month, when she saw how much she'd improved, it made a tremendous breakthrough in their relationship. He would actually speak to her as though she was a person who had something of value to offer.

It was probably then that her crush on him had begun. She never imagined that it would lead to anything, especially knowing how her father felt about the whole thing.

Mar’i was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of other students packing up--pens clicking closed, covers being placed on calculators, pages in notebooks and textbooks being closed, and backpacks zipping up.

Her professor was still scribbling an equation on the white board behind her, ignoring her students’ eagerness to leave.

Generally, Mar’i waited until they were actually dismissed to pack her things, but today she wanted to get out of there.

The professor turned to the class, saw that it was useless to keep doing example problems, and sighed forlornly. “Alright, alright. Here’s the homework due Tuesday.” She scribbled some page numbers on the board, and Mar’i mentally scolded herself for packing up her pens. She snapped a picture of the whiteboard with her phone, and she was out of there.

On the way to the subway station, Mar’i fiddled with her phone. Should she text Damian before popping over to the Manor?

It was a long walk, once she got off the furthest subway station in Bristol. The Manor was located about as far from the last subway station as you could get. Way back in the hoitiestest, toitiest of suburbs. She usually tried to fly there, but it was only about six in the evening. It was still too light out for her to get away with that.

She texted Damian, thinking that it would be nice company on her walk. 

The text she got back read: ‘I'm still in Gotham. Come by WE, I'll bring you home.’

Mar’i’s stomach fluttered. The Wayne Enterprises office building was downtown from where she was. She'd been there before, but not since she was a kid. Bruce had never invited her to his office since she'd reentered his life, so it never came up.

She made her way there in about twenty-five minutes. It would've taken her less time, but the trains were delayed, and she did get a little lost.

The first floor was wide and spacious, vaulted ceilinged and wide. It reminded her a little of the mall.

There were two main desks and an elevator. A security guard was standing by the elevator, and Mar’i assumed you couldn't get into the elevator without a pass or an appointment.

There was a blonde woman sitting at the desk closest to the door, and Mar’i approached her timidly.

“Hi,” she said through a panel of glass, like at the bank. Security was tight, it seemed. “I have, um… an appointment? With Mr. Wayne?”

“Which Mr. Wayne would that be, Miss?” the blonde asked, a smile plastered on her face.

“Oh,” Mar’i stammered. She should've known to differentiate. “Mr. Damian Wayne?”

The blonde furrowed her brows. “Mr. Wayne is unavailable after four o’clock, Miss.”

Mar’i should've just texted him. “Um, he asked me to come down and meet him, so…” She let her voice trail off. She didn't know what she was doing.

“Let me call his office for you,” the woman said, that same smile still plastered on her face. She lifted a chunky phone and dialed four numbers.

“Yes, hi. Sharice? I have a young woman here for Mr. Wayne? A Miss…” the receptionist looked at Mar’i and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Mary Grayson,” Mar’i said quickly.

“Miss Mary Grayson. Yes, that's what I told her, but it's a personal appointment. Yes. Okay, thank you.” The blonde woman wrapped telephone cord around her finger, looking the slightest bit nervous. “Yes, hello Mr. Wayne, how are you this evening. I'm well, thank you. Yes, sir. I have a Miss Mary Grayson asking for you? Is that--Oh. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I understand, sir. Good evening to you, too.”

The blonde put down the phone and raised her eyes to Mar’i. “Anthony will escort you to the Wayne’s private elevator in the back, dear.”

Mar’i opened her mouth to answer, but she didn't know what to say. A private elevator?

The security guard Mar’i noticed earlier escorted her down a thin hallway which laid past the elevator. There was a second elevator which Mar’i could not see from the vestibule, which she assumed were staff elevators. Then, at the end of the hall, there was an elevator that looked like the others. Like the staff elevator, it required an ID to call, and this elevator also had a down button, which had been absent on the others.

The security guard slid his ID down the reader, and the call button lit up. “There you are, Miss. Top floor. The door across the elevator is Mr. Wayne, Sr.’s office. The door you’re looking for will be down the hall, to the left.”

“Um, right. I mean, left. Got it. Thank you very much.”

He nodded and waited for the elevator to arrive before heading back to the vestibule.

Mar’i felt almost relieved when the elevator doors closed. It only lasted a second before she was consumed by nervousness. She didn't know what to expect when she got to his office. This all seemed very formal, and here she was, dressed in jeans and a cardigan.

The elevator arrived on the top floor and she immediately saw the door which led to Bruce’s office. She made her way down the hall, and when the hall split, she turned left. She saw the door which had Damian’s name in gold lettering, but below that there was a woman’s name. Sharice Petgrove.

Timidly, Mar’i pushed the door open. A small desk, where a woman with gorgeous dreadlocks was putting on a jacket.

“Hello!” she greeted Mar’i. “Mr. Wayne is expecting you. His office is right through here.” Sharice stood, and Mar’i couldn't help but notice heels, a pencil skirt, and a peplum blouse underneath her peacoat. Mar’i felt terribly underdressed. “This way, darling,” Sharice said, and she knocked on a door to the right of the small room.

Damian’s voice answered, and Sharice opened the door. “Miss Grayson is here, Mr. Wayne.” Sharice gestured for Mar’i to enter the office and she did.

Damian’s office was much bigger than Sharice’s tiny room. The entire third wall of the office was glass, with a view of Gotham below them. There was a fire going on the wall opposite Damian’s desk. He had two sitting areas set up, one for clients or whoever would be coming to see him at his desk, the other by the fireplace with expensive furniture that was resemblant of a living room. There was even an area rug in the sitting area.

“Hello, Mary,” Damian greeted her. “And thank you Sharice. You may go, I'm only finishing a few things.”

“Thank you, Mister Wayne. Have a nice evening,” Sharice said, and she ducked out of the office, closing the door behind her.

Damian had papers stacked up in a tall pile on his right side, and on his left was a pile of only about ten.

“I'd hoped to be finished by the time you got here,” he said apologetically. “I'll only be a few minutes more, I just have to read these over and sign them before sending these documents to the board.”

Mar'i didn't know what to say. It was all very official, and she wasn't prepared for any of this when she sent him her initial text. “That's okay!” she managed. “Take your time.”

He was already reading the next document when she answered, so she busied herself by looking around his office. There were no pictures or anything personal in the whole office, which is something that she expected of Damian. He did have several books on shelves set into the wall opposite the window, and she looked them over. Many were in Arabic, the ones in English were mostly classics. She couldn't imagine him reading A Tale of Two Cities here.

She noticed a coat rack by the door where Damian’ s suit jacket was hung up, so she took off her messenger bag with her textbooks in it and hung it up. 

She'd forgotten to text her parents that she would be staying over at the Manor, at least for tonight if not for the whole weekend, and she pulled her phone out of her back pocket to do so.

She laid her phone down among Damian’s books once she sent the text, knowing that her father would send her a barrage of texts about still doing her schoolwork and being careful. She would answer him later.

She didn't hear him get up, but Damian’s hands rested themselves on her hips. “I'm glad you came by,” he said, his voice low, his breath on her neck. 

Her skin prickled with little goosebumps, and she turned her head slightly to give him more access to her skin. He pressed his mouth to the skin there, softly, probably remembering the way she'd hated the love bite he left last time.

“I'm glad you invited me,” she said, and she turned so that she was facing him.

He kissed her, so warm and slow, and she was a melty pile of putty under him. He stroked his hand along her curls, increasing the pressure he used to kiss her until she couldn't take it anymore, and she opened her mouth under his to slide her tongue against his.

X’hal, they'd hardly said two words to each other and she already had her tongue in his mouth.

He’d slipped a hand under her shirt, although he was only caressing her stomach, which was driving her mad. She needed friction. She rolled her hips against him, and as she did she could feel him poking against her thigh.

Spurred by the movement of her hips, Damian slid his hand upward, over the material of her bra, and he slid his thumb right over the center.

“X’hal, Damian, wait,” she panted, pushing him back by straightening her arms. “We’ve barely said hello to each other.” She pulled her shirt back down over her stomach and pressed her lips together so he would stop staring at them.

“I said hello,” he pointed out.

“That's really not the point,” she said. 

“I know,” he sighed and cleared his throat. “How was class?”

“It was fine. I hate my professor, but it's just calculus.”

Damian nodded, but he was still looking at her like he had to have her right then and there.

“You have, like, a really fancy office,” Mar’i said.

“Yes, well. I can hardly take credit for it. This was father’s old office, until he upgraded the one down the hall. All I did was add the fireplace,” he said, gesturing toward it.

“I like it,” Mar’i said. “Although I don't think it's quite cold enough for it to be on just yet,” she chuckled.

“I'm from Saudi. I would have it on in July, if I could.”

She giggled at him.

“You have a great smile,” he murmured, and he was looking at her so deeply. 

Goddess, she wanted to go slow and talk with him and just enjoy being around him, but she also wanted him inside her, wanted him to say sweet things and touch her tenderly while he fucked her. She couldn't decide if they should wait or they should do it now.

It seemed to be entirely up to her at this point.

Maybe she could meet her own desires halfway.

“Damian,” she breathed, and she kissed him. As she expected, he completely devoured her, rolled his hips against her, touched her skin beneath her clothes.

She set to work loosening his tie, unbuttoning his shirt, letting her fingers roam. He was in such good shape, it didn't seem real. It was expected, obviously--you don't jump across rooftops and fight armed bad guys unless you could back it up--but still. 

She broke their kiss and locked her eyes with his before kissing a trail down his jaw, dawn his neck, down his chest. She blazed a trail over ridges of muscle with her fingers and followed it with her mouth. He’d twisted his fingers in her hair and he would tighten his grip when she did something particularly good.

She stroked the trail of hair that bordered his belly button, unzipped his fly and unbuttoned his pants so she could continue following it.

“Mar’i,” he gasped, but she shushed him before he could finish his thought. He quieted obediently. 

She pulled down his pants and boxers in one motion and there it was. Staring at her. The one-eyed monster. He was breathing fast, looking down at her curiously. His face was red, and his chest was rising and falling rapidly. She met his eyes briefly and for some reason, that decided it for her.

A fat bead of moisture had accumulated on the tip, and while fixing her eyes on his, she licked it off. This earned a groan from him, and he pushed his fingers through her hair at the top of her head. She raised her fingers to stroke him gently, and as she did she could feel him twitching.

She licked him, slowly, from base to tip, and when she reached the tip, she took him into her mouth.

“God, Mar’i,” he groaned. “Fuck.”

Her stomach flipped at that, and she gently eased her mouth down, dragging her tongue along the underside as she did.

She could feel his cock pulsing at her ministrations. She kept her movements slow and languid. With all of his twitching, Mar’i didn't estimate this lasting very long, plus they'd been making out like horny teenagers.

As she bobbed her head, trying to make her movements smooth and fluid, hair escaped from where she’d tucked it behind her ears and spilled onto her face. Damian reached down and swept it out of the way for her, holding what he could reach in a knot at the back of her head.

She back drew her head, sneaking a small peak at him, and drew her mouth to the tip. She wrapped her hand around the base and began dipping her head again, the movement of her mouth and hand coordinated.

“Mar’i,” he gasped, after a few minutes of stroking his hands through her hair and twisting his fingers in her curls. “Mar’i, I’m--I’m almost--”

She picked up the pace, bobbing as quickly as she could, increasing the friction, making sure her tongue was pressing against the underside. He groaned and pushed her head down as he came, hot cum shooting into her mouth. There was a lot of it, and she had to swallow quickly to keep from choking. He relaxed and stroked his fingers through her hair again, his touch light. 

She released him from her mouth and wiped her lips, smirking up at him. 

He had an arm on the wall holding himself up, and he looked like he’d just put in a few undercover hours or something--exhausted.

“I--” he stammered, and as he spoke he fiddled with the knot of his tie until it came undone, and he pulled it out from under his collar. A new meaning to ‘hot under the collar’, Mar’i thought, and she smiled to herself. “Thank you,” he said.

That felt a little awkward, so Mar’i deflected by standing and saying, “My pleasure.”

He surprised her by pulling her close by the shoulders and kissing her, although there wasn’t as much gusto as there had been before she’d gotten her hands (well, mouth) on him. He released her and slung his tie over his shoulder to stoop and pull up his pants. She averted her eyes as he fixed himself, turning to look out the window.

“Uh, dumb question,” she said over her shoulder. “These windows…?”

Damian chuckled behind her. “They’re tinted. I can see out but no one can see in.”

“Oh. Well, good,” she said lamely. 

He came up behind her and placed his hands on her hips. “Did you think I’d let you do all that in front of an open window?”

“I would certainly hope not,” she said. 

“I would definitely get curtains if these weren’t tinted. I don’t need all of Gotham peering up at me.”

Mar’i shrugged. Even if they weren’t tinted, she didn’t really think anyone could see in. This was the tallest building for several blocks, and they were on the top floor. Someone below would have to have a telescope or something to see in. Either way, she definitely felt better with tinted windows.

“Let’s go home,” Mar’i said as she looked out over Gotham. She couldn’t see the Manor from here, but she knew which direction it was. “I’m starving, and you look exhausted.”

Damian’s hands on her hips wandered over her ass, and he said into her ear, “Not too exhausted to return the favor.”

His hot breath on her ear painted an image of what it might feel like elsewhere. Mar’i blushed even as blood rushed to the tingling spot between her legs.

She was only about three moves away from throwing herself onto his desk and letting him have his way with her there, but she stowed that idea away for another time.

“Another time,” she said, trying to sound cool even though he was already smirking at her violent blush. “You need to get some rest before we go out tonight.” 

His eyes lit up at that. “Will Nightstar be gracing us with her presence tonight?”

She raised her eyebrows at him, greeting his sarcasm sternly. “She was planning on it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mar'i's first night back on the job is rainy but fun.

The March night air swirled around Mar’i, taking with it some of the fine rain that misted over Gotham. The rain was so slight it was almost invisible, except when it fell in front of streetlights. Fatter droplets illuminated in front of the dim green light thrown from her eyes. 

The night had been rather uneventful so far. Mar’i was covering the upper and mid-west side, so she had the responsibility of checking on the museums periodically. The West side was more of a course of checking on hotspots, whereas the lower blocks were usually filled with continuous monitoring. Each night differed based on reports from earlier in the week, but it was a pretty routine weekday so far.

Her hair was wet by now, her curls weighed down with water and hanging loosely against her faceplate. Her midriff was damp, but it didn't bother her much. She was warm thanks to the solar energy swirling around inside of her.

Her mind wandered as she scanned the streets below. It seemed so long ago that she had met with Damian in his office, although it had only been a few hours since then. The memory of dropping to her knees in front of him made her blush to herself.

She'd never been the type of person to do something like that with a guy she’d only been seeing for a few days, but she felt like she knew him so well already. She felt safe with him. It was stupid of her, really. In reality, she  _ didn't  _ know him. She knew cursory things, like the fact that he was a vegetarian, his birthday, she knew that he was actually extremely patient when he wanted to be and that he was very, very clever. All of the things she'd discovered when he trained her in the summer.

She didn't know the things that girls knew about their boyfriends. His favorite food, any quirks or habits he had, any hobbies. He must do  _ something _ for fun, or to relax. He liked reading, she could tell that much from his extensive collection of thick books in his office.

It was the superhero thing that was tricking her into a sense of false intimacy. She already knew his most personal secret, and he already knew hers. She'd never dated someone before who could see her the way she really was, without holograms and extensive lies. She knew that at face value. But it was so hard in the moment not to feel that she knew everything about him and that he knew just as much about her.

She wondered if he felt the same way or if she was the only one so caught up in all this.

“Batman,” Spoiler’s voice whined over the comm link, “can't we take an early night?” 

Mar’i cocked her head to the side to listen more closely to the conversation.

“It's wet and cold and none of us have done anything productive in hours.”

There was silence over the link for a long time. So long that Mar'i thought that Bruce was ignoring her.

“Fine,” Bruce said over the comm. “But I want everyone to double check all hotspots before turning in and I want detailed reports in your write-ups.”

Checking hotspots, or the main areas that Bruce decided years ago were more likely to attract criminal activity, meant that Mar’i’s section would take the longest. She sighed sharply and made her way toward the history museum, the closest hotspot to her current location.

Scoping out the area around the museum was easier for her thanks to flight, since none of the buildings directly nearby were particularly tall enough to offer a vantage point. Next on her list was the art museum, a few blocks northeast from the history museum.

She was trying to hurry on her way, but she was still able to spot it on a rooftop. The silhouette of a tunic and cape.

She landed in front of it and brushed some wet hair that escaped from her ponytail out of her face.

Damian pressed a gloved finger to his lips, signalling for her to be quiet, and plucked the comm link from her ear. He switched it off and stowed it in his belt.

“Hello,” he said.

It was relatively dark on the rooftops. The dim illumination provided from streetlights on the ground didn't reach so far up, and Gotham was notorious for a starless sky even on cloudless nights.

Most of the illumination between them was coming from the dim green light of her eyes. 

“Hi,” Mar'i answered, smiling. The fact that he'd come to see her was enough to make her stomach flip pathetically. 

He was studying her in the dim light, and suddenly Mar’i was very aware of her wet hair, the way it clung to her faceplate and stuck to her scalp, how her curls hung limply off her shoulders.

He took a small step forward, closing the space between them, and placed gloved hands over her bare waist. It took all of Mar’i’s willpower not to melt into him or let her knees buckle out from under her.

She raised her hands to his hair, which was drier than hers, thanks to his hood. Droplets clung to the styled hair in the front and she disturbed them with her touch.

The Robin cape brushed against her as wind lifted her hair from her shoulders, and she shivered against the momentary cold. Her Tamaranean defenses would kick in momentarily, shielding her from the chill.

Damian allowed his mouth to linger on hers before lifting his hand to her face and breaking the kiss.

“Cold?” he asked, sounding more curious than concerned.

Mar’i shrugged. “It's the rain and the wind,” she explained. “I'll be fine a second.”

He studied her again, his expression calm but his eyes burning intensely. “Why don't we get you home and into a hot shower,” he said, his tone so even he sounded almost bored. 

“Um, okay,” Mar’i said, slightly confused. There were showers in the Cave specifically for them to clean up in before they entered the Manor, and just like the rest of the team, she always used them after a night’s work.

“ _ My  _ shower,” he clarified.

Heat rushed to Mar’i’s face as she realized exactly what he meant. “Okay,” she said, and realizing that the word fell out of her mouth kind of lamely, she pulled him toward her by his wet cape and kissed him again. She pressed her body against his and wrapped her arms around his neck, and she kissed him slowly but eagerly.

Even in the rain, she could spend hours kissing him. His mouth was soft but the kiss was hard and she was warm from blushing and lightheaded. With her eyes closed, her world stopped and started with their kiss. The only other sensory information she registered was the rain as it misted against her back and the feeling of Damian’s cape brushing against her.

“I'll meet you in my bedroom,” Damian told her. He pressed another kiss against her lips and she held his jaw between her hands, feeling the scratchy beginnings of a beard against her fingers. He broke the kiss slowly, although Mar’i could have continued until the sun came up. She sensed that he was eager to return to the Manor, though, and let him escape from between her hands.

He nodded at her and tapped the comm link in his ear to turn it on again, and she could hear the pneumatic release of the jump line as he pulled the trigger on his grappling gun and disappeared from view.

Mar’i paused, her gaze lingering at the spot from which Damian had disappeared. She was filled with nervous excitement and she took a breath to calm herself.

Once she was more collected, she lifted away from the rooftop and continued on her route to the history museum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between chapters, I've had a lot going on. I've already written about a third of the next chapter, so that should be coming up soon. Thanks for reading! Please leave comments if you have them!


	5. Chapter 5

Mar’i hummed to herself as she typed. The Batcave was dark as usual, but tonight, Mar'i found the darkness to be rather gloomier than usual. The main monitor, which was mounted at the front of their workspace and was the size of a wall and generally acted as a source of illumination, was turned off by Bruce earlier, before he had gone upstairs. There were some sconces set in the craggy walls, and some lighting in the floors, but part of the drawback of being in a cave was a lack of opportunity for overhead lighting. 

Tim had gone into the showers connected to a small locker for them to use. Mar’i could hear the faint splatter of water on the ground, and it only made her more impatient to finish her work.

As Bruce's network of vigilantes grew, Mar'i had learned, certain regulations were put in place to ensure that no detail went missed, and each person performed their job suitably. An extensive system of documentation by hour awaited each member of the family on their return to the Cave, including Bruce. Mar’i was actually not the last one to return home. She learned that after bagging an early night for the rest of them, Stephanie had caught an attempted burglary in process in the suburbs, and she was held up at the police station.

Mar’i’s nails clicked against the keyboard. She was bored, and in her boredom, her mind wandered.

Her meeting with Damian lay on the other side of this computer screen. He was probably waiting for her now. The thought sent shockwaves up her stomach through her throat.

She thought of the way he looked at her earlier in his office, eyes blazing intensely. Thought of the way his mouth felt on hers, so soft and warm and eager. She thought of lying in his bed after, warm and wrapped in his arms, his bare chest against hers. 

This stupid busywork was killing her.

She skipped mentioning Damian’s visit and settled for a summation of her night after that.

She covertly checked to make sure Tim was still in the shower, then she lifted into the air and flew into the Manor through the clock entrance.

The feeling of sneaking around in her grandfather’s house, where she was, really, a guest, made a hard lump of guilt form in her stomach. Right now, though, it was easy to ignore.

She flew up the stairs toward Damian’s room. His door was shut, and she could hear his shower running in the en suite bathroom. 

She knocked timidly, and she was met with a simple, “Come in.”

She stepped through the threshold and shut the door quietly behind her. Damian was in the basics of his Robin suit--the black bottoms and green Nomex top remaining, tunic and boots discarded.

His room was painted in earth tones, all varying shades of brown with black furniture. The walls were a yellow-brown, and the accent piece in the room was an intricately decorated fine rug, obviously obtained from overseas. His room was immaculate, except for his tunic and boots he'd tossed aside. 

She'd never been in his room before, and it felt a bit like he was sharing something very intimate with her. 

“What on Earth took you so long?” he asked as he approached her. “I'd begun to think you were avoiding me.”

He was taller than her, but barely. At 5’11, Mar’i towered over some of the other guys she dated in the past. She’d gotten used to it in high school, but it did give her a rush of satisfaction to find that Damian stood three or four inches taller than her.

“Of course not,” she scoffed, settling against the door frame as he placed himself in her personal space. “I was busy on the computers.”

“All work and no play,” he tutted.

Mar’i had to stop herself from giggling like an idiot. “I wouldn't say that. I did have a very interesting visit during my patrol tonight.” She reached a hand up to stroke at his hair, and she let her fingers drop down to trace across his cheek and over his jawline. 

This spurred him to kiss her, and he did so as though he'd left her on that rooftop in downtown Gotham only seconds ago. His mouth was warm and his hands were eager, one hand clinging tightly to her hip, the other eagerly traveling upward to palm at her breast.

She slid her fingertips beneath his shirt, the tight yet rigid nature of the fabric making it hard for her to really explore his skin, but she was determined. After struggling with it, she broke their kiss, frowning. “How the hell do you get this off?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Impatient.” her undid a series of clasps hidden beneath the collar, and when he was done he was able to lift the shirt over his head, giving Mar’i free access to his abdomen and chest. She busied herself by trailing kisses down his collarbone, sucking hard at the skin at his pectoral muscle.

He sighed at that, although he pulled her away by her hair before she was done with him.

“We're wasting hot water,” he said, as though it was her fault he'd decided to run the shower before she even made it to his room.

The expression she fixed him with felt like a glare, but must have been something more like a pout, because he chuckled at her and told her she was cute before leading her to his bathroom.

The bathroom was also earth toned, all beige tile with black accents. The shower door, barely visible through all the steam in the room, was made of elegant, flawless glass.

Damian had an obvious advantage when it came to disrobing her, being that he'd helped her design her uniform. It was difficult to make the uniforms out of tight material, flexible to an important point yet also bulletproof, and make them easy to get on and off.

Had her uniform been long sleeved, she might have opted for a zipper down the arm, or if it reached down her entire torso, a simple front zipper would have been sufficient. But her sleeveless top which exposed her stomach only really left her with a back zipper and clasps, which was a real pain to get on by herself.

Damian, however, managed to free her of her top in seconds. It was stupid, but she blushed, standing before him in her sports bra and top. It wasn't her first time doing this with a guy, but it stood out to her that this was Damian, and that after their fun in the shower they were going to have sex, and that it wouldn't be so easy to go back from that.

She took a deep breath of steamy air to calm herself and pushed his pants down off his hips. The tightness of everything caused her to pull down his underwear as well, and she was greeted by his semi-hard member. She resisted the urge to give it her attention for now and pushed his pants the rest of the way down and let him step out of them.

She moved to pull her sports bra over her head, but Damian caught her elbow and said, “Let me.”

He pushed her toward the counter, against the sink, and in a single quick motion he pulled the bra over her head. She felt his eyes on her, and she also felt his cock twitch against her thigh.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, and he pressed a kiss against her lips, and another against her jaw, and he continued down until her reached the swell of her breast. He covered it with his mouth, circling the sensitive area with soft motions of his tongue.

Instinctively, she rolled her hips toward him and as she did, he pulled at her bottoms.

“Damian,” she breathed, reluctant to distract him from what he was doing. “There's a zipper.”

He raised his head to actually look at what he was doing and located the zipper at her hip. Once he pulled at it, her pants came down with an eager tug.

He cupped her ass in his hands and, his mouth at her ear, he said, “After you.”

Honestly, she didn't even need the shower. She was good to go like this, against his sink in an envelope of steam.

She swallowed the thought down and untangled herself from his arms.

The water was hot. She could tell as she pushed the glass door open that it would be too hot for him, but being a half-Tamaranean, it didn't bother her at all. She adjusted the temperature for him and beckoned him to join her by crooking her finger at him, and he obeyed.

Once he'd pushed the glass door closed, he was completely focused on caressing every inch of her skin available to him. He nipped at the skin between her neck and her shoulder, and she had to catch his face between two hands to initiate a watery, open mouthed kiss. 

She teased him a little, tracing the ridges of abdominal muscle down to his hips and up again, but it wasn't long before she wrapped her fist around his cock. He sighed as she did so, digging his fingers into her hips.

She traced the tip with her fingertips, light touches that she could tell were driving him mad. She pressed her lips against his collarbone, kissing him lightly, and she opened her mouth to slide her tongue over wet skin.

He gasped and squirmed at her ministrations, and she may have pushed it too far, as he pushed her roughly into the wall of the shower. “God,” he murmured, and he positioned his cock between her thighs and thrust against her.

The friction he created to relieve himself of her teasing was almost too much for her to take. As he rolled his hips against her, his cock brushed against her clit, and she was swept up in a wave of frustrated pleasure.

“X’hal,” she said when she was able to breathe again. “Damian,” she gasped.

She was going to ask him to get on with it right then, the desire was so great. But then, did she really want their first time to be in the shower? Did it matter?

She was contemplating this when he pulled away from her. The absence of him pressed against her snapped her out of her daze. 

“We should actually shower while we're here,” he said, and she wondered if he stepped back because he was thinking the same thing she was.

“I'm ready for this now,” Mar’i said.

As she spoke, Damian was squirting soap out of a bottle, and at the last word, he crumpled the bottle in his fist, soap squirting out of it comically.

“Not yet,” he said, and she could tell that he was trying to sound firm.

She sighed. “We should hurry this up, then.”

He abandoned his bottle of soap. “You're being very demanding,” he told her. He brushed his fingers against her cheek and stepped toward her for a kiss. She was hyper aware of his fingers slowly descending down her body, tracing her collarbone, her breast, the shape of her hip, until it came to rest between her legs.

He hesitated there, and she rocked her hips toward his hand, desperate to create some friction to relieve the throbbing frustration coursing through her. That seemed to encourage him, and he buried a finger within her folds.

She moaned at the sensation, relieved to have some contact, even if it wasn't quite what she needed. His mouth busied itself by placing slow, wet kisses against her neck, sucking at the water that was there and nipping at the skin with his teeth. His free hand drifted to cup her ass, squeezing as she rocked into him.

He could finish her this way, she thought dimly. It wouldn't take much longer. But, a weak voice in the back of her mind reminded her, she had been wanting the real thing. Sex, preferably on a bed, at least for their first time. After that she didn't really give a damn where or how they did it.

“Damian,” she groaned, pushing against his chest. “Wait.”

He paused, although he left his fingers inside, and fixed her with a questioning look.

“I want you,” she murmured, and she let her fingers roam over his abdomen and lower until they reached his cock. She traced her fingertips over it and it twitched against her.

He seemed to consider what she was saying before withdrawing his fingers and letting warm water run over them. “We could always do it in here,” he offered, and he rolled his hips against her thigh.

She stroked him teasingly with one hand while the other drifted to the short hairs at the back of his neck. “Maybe some other time,” she said after pretending to consider it. “I want you to fuck me in your bed first.”

She could almost see the fire in his eyes that ignited at her words. He tilted her head up with his fingers at her chin and placed a wild, sloppy against her open mouth. As he did so, he reached behind her and turned the water off. “After you,” he said, and he pushed the glass door open.

She gathered her hair in her hands to wring it out, pleased that he was watching her, and after about another gallon of water slapped against the damp tile floor, she shook it out against her back. 

Once she pushed the door open a rush of colder air greeted them, and she was eager to wrap herself in a white, fluffy towel. Damian dried his hair and let it fall to the ground.

“Come on,” he said impatiently as he opened the door leading out to his room. 

“Hang on,” Mar’i giggled. “I'm still all wet.”

“I'm sure you are aware, but you can have sex while wet.” He pushed the door even further open and tilted his head toward it.

“Your bed will get wet,” she said as she abandoned her effort to dry off and patted the towel over her soaking her.

“I couldn't care less about that if I tried. Hurry up, Grayson.”

She dropped the towel and floated through the door in front of him. Her plan was to float onto the bed, but he caught her by the wrist and turned her to face him as they approached it.

He caught her in a deep, slow kiss, and as he kissed her he directed her onto the bed. He kneeled next to her and gently pushed her back until she was lying down. 

His fingers brushed over her skin softly but insistently, over the curve of her breast and across her hips. 

“Mar'i,” he said, and it occurred to her that he looked slightly nervous. “I… wanted to tell you that… i'm glad this is happening.”

For some reason, his saying that made her feel slightly nervous. “So am I,” she said, and she pulled him over her.

Her heart was beating fast, and the butterflies that were once contained to her stomach seemed to have spread out over entire body, through her arms and into her fingertips, gathering between her legs and spreading out until they reached her toes. She positioned him over her with her knees at his hips, and the only thing left was to actually do it.

“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded.

He entered her in a fluid motion, and as he buried himself in her, she wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her ankles to secure them together. He pulled out and entered her again, and she groaned, softly. 

She'd been waiting for this for--well, only a few days, really, but it was all she’d been thinking about and now, to finally be getting it--

Her thoughts were cut short by an abrupt knock on the door and the knob being twisted.

They both froze, and Mar’i’s blood ran icily through her veins.

“Damian?” Tim’s voice called from the other side of the door. “Why is your door locked?”

Damian straightened his back so he was kneeling over her. He looked enraged. “Drake, you'd better have a good reason for pounding on my door in the middle of the--”

“You'd better get out here now. Bruce is having a heart attack. Steph is on the phone with EMS.”

Damian’s expression went blank, and he glanced down at Mar’i like he forgot she was there. In an attempt not to make any noise, she'd covered her mouth with both hands. Her heart stopped and she felt dizzy where she lay.

“Damian?” Tim called.

“I just got out of the shower, I'll be right there,” Damian answered mechanically. “Go back and stay with Father.”

They waited until they no longer heard Tim’s footsteps before they both sprang off the bed.

Mar’i rushed toward the bathroom to gather her clothes, but Damian stopped her. “There's not enough time to put your uniform back on. Take this--” He shoved a white, fluffy robe at her-- “and fly back down to your room, put pajamas on, and wait there.”

“What?!” she demanded. “My grandfather is having a heart attack and you want me to wait in my--”

“You have to wait for someone to tell you about it. You weren't in here, so you don't know about it.”

She frowned at him. “But--but--”

“There's no time for this,” he snapped, already pulling on sweatpants. “Drake might be on his way now to tell you.”

“Fine,” Mar'i huffed as she secured the robe around her waist, overwhelmed with anger at Damian for some reason. She floated over to his window and slammed it open before shooting out of it.

Good thing she hadn't locked her bedroom window. She climbed into it from the outside, pulled on a pair of pajamas, threw the robe into her closet, and sat on her bed to wait.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's heart attack leaves everyone shaken. Mar'i calls both her parents.

Mar’i paced nervously across the shiny white floor of Gotham General’s cardiac cath waiting room.

Bruce had _not_ wanted to go to the hospital. He denied that he was having a heart attack and listed all the possible reasons for chest pains.

The only problem was that his medications were supposed to make them go away.

It didn't happen the way Mar'i thought it would. He never passed out, he wasn't clutching his chest. He was sitting in the armchair in his room looking thoroughly _annoyed._ Mar'i couldn't help but notice the way his knuckles turned white as he gripped the arms of the chair, and the way his jaw was clenched, and that he was looking rather pale. But that was it.

The EMTs came up and pulled out some wires and attached them to Bruce’s chest, and that was it. They put him on a stretcher and buckled him into it and they all piled into Steph’s car.

And there they were, in a tiny waiting room outside the cardiac procedure wing, looking out wide windows as people in white coats ran by in all directions.

Tim and Steph sat next to each other, Tim sitting with his arms crossed and Steph with her hands clasped together. Cass had come in from her night off, and she sat on Steph’s other side. She didn't ask many questions, never having been a woman of many words, but she looked quietly solemn.

Damian situated himself all the way in the corner of the room, sprawled out over two chairs, scrolling through his phone like he was annoyed to be there. He hadn't so much as looked at Mar'i since she joined them in Bruce's room, and she was doing her best to ignore him, too.

As Mar'i paced, she kept glancing at her phone. Her father would be waking up soon for his shift, and she'd texted him a block of text explaining what happened. She was expecting a call when he woke up.

Finally, minutes later, her phone lit up and began to vibrate. Mar'i turned to Tim, Steph, and Cass’s general spot in the room and mumbled, “I'm gonna take this.”

Not waiting for an answer, she ducked out the heavy door and into the hallway.

“Hello?” she said into the phone.

“Mar'i?” her father's voice greeted her. It was still colored with the edge of sleepy thickness, but she assumed he took some time to read and process her text before calling, so it wasn't like he was groggy. “What's going on? Is everything okay?”

“I don't know yet, dad,” Mar'i said, and against her will, tears crept into her voice. “Grandpa seemed basically fine the whole time but they said he was having a heart attack and they're putting, like, a tube in his heart or something. I don't know, I'm so worried.”

Dick’s voice on the other end of the line was silent for a moment, before he sighed and said, “I'm sorry you’re going through this. But now I hope you can see why I don't want you getting involved with the family business.”

Mar'i froze, eyes still damp but her mood changing from vulnerable and open to shuttered and _pissed_. “What?” she said, unable to mask her surprise at her father's words.

“The fear you're having now is the fear your mother and I have every time you go over there, Mar'i. Not knowing if you'll be okay or not.”

“That's completely different,” she said, her tone much more even, not betraying the way her pulse beat loudly in her ears.

“Is it?” Dick challenged.

“Yes,” Mar'i snapped. “This isn't even about getting hurt _out there_. This is about you making me feel better because a relative I actually care about is sick.”

“You know as well as I do that he wouldn't be ‘sick’ right now if it weren't for years and years of his ‘night shift’.”

“X’hal, dad, stop talking like that.” Mar'i was no longer trying to hide her anger. “If you actually gave a shit, you wouldn't be standing on your high horse trying to lecture me. This is serious.”

“This has always been serious,” Dick countered, his voice even as Mar’i’s temper flared. “Hopefully you're starting to see that now.”

“You're being  a-” She stammered. Even as worked up as she was becoming, she had a hard time throwing insults at her father when she knew that he really just cared about her. “A huge jerk. Don't you want to offer to come up to see him or _something_?”

“I'm not coming to Gotham,” Dick said flatly. “I do appreciate the update. What time are you coming home?”

Her father’s instant dismissal caused her anger to swell tightly around her throat and stomach. “I'm not coming home until Grandpa is better,” she spat into her cell phone.

“What?!”

Mar'i was perversely satisfied that he was finally starting to get upset.

“What do you mean you're not coming home? All your clothes are here. The rest of your books. You have to come home.”

“I don't _have_ to do anything. I'm 20 years old and I have my own room in the Manor.”

“Mar’i, I don't have time to finish talking about this right now. I expect you home by tonight.”

“I’m not coming home, dad.”

Dick was silent for a few moments, then wearily said, “I'll have your mother call you after she drops off Jake. I love you and I'll see you tonight.”

Mar'i fumed to herself. She didn't feel like reciprocating the ‘I love you’ just then, so she just said, “Bye, dad,” and hung up.

She resisted the urge to throw her phone on the floor and unleash rapid-fire starbolts at it.

Her father deeply disapproved of her taking up the Nightstar mantle, she knew, but he did let her, grudgingly. She didn't expect him to completely dismiss Bruce’s heart attack and use it as a chance to lecture her.

Maybe he thought that if Bruce died, she'd give up being Nightstar. The thought made her queasy.

She tucked her phone into her pocket and slipped back into the waiting room.

“Everything okay?” Steph asked as Mar'i picked out an empty seat a few chairs away from the three of them.

“Yeah,” she said in a tone that should have made it clear that she didn't want to talk about it. She threw in a reassuring smile as well, because she didn't want to worry them.

Damian continued to ignore all of them and kept scrolling through his phone, looking bored.

He could have at least _pretended_ to be concerned about her, since she was obviously upset enough for Steph to pick up on.

Angry tears began to prick at Mar'i’s eyes, so she closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

The next hour passed with little variation. At some point, Tim left to get everyone coffee, but everyone's nerves were too frayed for caffeine.

Finally, when Mar'i began to wonder if they'd been forgotten in their tiny box-like waiting room, a surgeon wearing green scrubs and paper boots covering his shoes knocked on the door before entering.

“Hello, everyone,” the surgeon addressed them. “Mr. Wayne is doing excellently. The procedure went well and there doesn't appear to be any complications. We're getting ready to transfer him to the cardiac floor now. He needs to stay in the hospital for 48 hours on bedrest for observation to make sure there are no complications, especially bleeding. We'll speak to Mr. Wayne, likely tomorrow, about medications he’ll need to begin taking, namely blood thinners to make sure that this doesn't happen again.”

A chill went through each person in the room except the blissfully ignorant surgeon. Mar'i bitterly wondered how he would react if he knew that he'd just ordered the demise of Batman.

“Can we see him?” Damian asked, lowering his phone long enough to fix the surgeon with an icy gaze.

“He is in the Post-Anesthesia unit now so he's allowed one visitor just because he's not really awake yet and we don't want to overwhelm him.”

Damian scanned the rest of the room for signs of a protest before he said, “I'd like to go.”

There was a slightly stiff silence, but no one objected. Everyone already knew that Damian would insist on seeing him first.

He left the room with the surgeon, and Mar'i actually felt herself relax in his absence, which she absolutely hated.

Mar'i relaxed slightly, sinking into the uncomfortable chair and shutting her eyes. Now that she wasn't so anxious, she realized how exhausted she was.

“How is he?” Cass asked when Damian returned, practically jumping down his throat.

Damian shrugged. “He’s still coming to from being under. He’s too groggy to hold a conversation, but the Nurse Manager assured me that was normal.” He slid his fingers through his hair, and in that moment, he looked as tired as Mar’i felt. “I arranged for him to have a private room and Alfred will be coming here once we’re done to take care of him.”

“You left him while he was sleeping?” Cass frowned. “He won’t know that we were here.”

Damian scowled at her. “What did you want me to do, shake him around until he woke up?” He rolled his eyes at her and yanked his phone charger out of the wall. “Let’s go. Drake, you drive home. Brown is likely to fall asleep at the wheel.”

“I am _not_ ,” Steph protested as the door shut behind Damian, who had stalked out into the hallway ahead of everyone else.

“He’s just upset,” Tim said, although he did take the keys from her.

“No,” Mar’i said as she pulled on her jacket, “he’s being a jerk.”

Tim shrugged wearily. “That’s what he does when he’s upset.”

The ride home was silent, and Mar’i made sure that Cass sat between herself and Damian. He didn’t seem to notice that she was doing her best to ignore him back, but she didn’t even care if he noticed at this point.

The sun was beginning to come up, and as weak rays of sun peaked through the thin, gray clouds that always seemed to be hovering over Gotham, she felt a small boost of energy. Not that it helped at all, she felt so miserable that all she wanted to do was lay in bed once they got back to the Manor.

Her room was just as she left it, her bed made, since she never actually got to lay in it, and Damian’s bathrobe was still in her closet.

She opened her window, ignoring the chill of the late-winter morning, and let the sun’s rays touch her skin. Her bed was across from the window, so she laid on top of the covers and let the sun wash over her.

It was only about an hour later when Mar’i was startled awake by the ringing of her cell phone.

The first thing she noticed upon waking, besides her phone's ringtone, was that her skin was tingling with cold. The temperature must have dropped even more since she'd slept. When she flew over to her window to close it, she noticed thin gray drops of rain drizzling down. Typical Gotham.

She snapped the window shut and flew over to her bed again, and she grabbed her phone before it stopped ringing.

“Hello?” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

“Mar’i?”

“Mom,” Mar’i sighed, glad to finally hear a comforting voice. “Hi.”

“Your father left me a text. Is Bruce okay?” For some reason, her mother’s caring and anxiety contrasted so starkly with the conversation she had with her father at the hospital that a lump formed at the back of her throat, making it hard to swallow.

“Yeah,” she answered, and as she spoke tears welled in her eyes. “He’s okay, he just has to stay at the hospital for like two days and Alfred’s staying to care of him but Mom--” the lump in her throat began to choke out her words, so she coughed and sniffled and tried to calm herself before continuing. “Mom, he has to take blood thinners. He won’t be able to fight anymore. Not ever again.” A tear rolled down Mar’i’s cheek and she bit her lip to try to control herself.

She hadn’t meant to get so emotional, but with everything going on, plus being deprived of sleep, she couldn’t help it.

Kory hadn’t spoken yet, and Mar’i wasn’t sure if she was letting her empty her thoughts or if she didn’t have anything to say, but it didn’t matter, really.

“He’s going to come home and he won’t ever be able to put the suit on again. What’s he going to do?”

“He’ll adjust. Trust me. I’ve done it before.”

Mar’i paused, and she blinked back some tears as they were forming. She hadn’t ever thought of her mother’s transition from heroism to civilian life or how it must have felt for her.

“Do you miss it?” she asked, almost whispering. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer.

“I miss it a little bit every day,” Kory answered, her voice soft.

“Why did you stop?” Mar’i asked.

“It wasn’t safe anymore. I’m sure you’ve heard the story before, but there was a Robin, between your father and Tim. Jason. He died. Was murdered, actually.” Kory paused, and Mar’i held her breath. She had heard of Jason before, Bruce told her when he gave her her first tour of the Batcave. He made sure that she knew. “Your father had seen it coming. Told Bruce that it wasn’t safe to keep throwing him back in jail, and that Jason was too young with too little training. Bruce didn’t listen and Jason died.”

“Is that when dad quit being Nightwing?”

“No,” Kory answered. “Not just then. We were still living in New York. Still with the Teen Titans. It wasn’t until we moved to Bludhaven that he quit, but he was certainly never the same after that.”

There must have been more than a minute of silence after that, but there was no one on Earth (or Tamaran) who knew Mar’i better than her mother, and she didn’t hang up or have to ask if she was still there.

“Mom,” Mar’i began, slowly. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

Now Kory was silent. Ten seconds went by, then twenty seconds, and Mar’i had to pull her cell phone away from her ear to make sure she was still connected.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think you are. I think you’re doing what you need to.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Mar’i said, and she sniffled again. “So do I.”

“But don’t tell your father I told you that, okay? This is our little secret.”

“Dad hates Grandpa, doesn’t he?”

“X’hal, Mar’i!” Mar’i knew she shouldn’t have asked, but she wanted to talk to her mom about this while she could. “Your father does not hate him.”

“Then why? Why all the avoiding him? Why won’t he see him in the hospital? Why did he throw out Grandpa’s to me when I was a kid? Why did he make me go to Bludhaven public schools instead of Gotham Academy?”

Kory sighed. “He was afraid. And he still is. And he’s afraid for you now.”

“Afraid of Grandpa?”

“No. Afraid of Batman.”

“But Mom,” Mar’i said, suddenly feeling annoyed, “Grandpa _is_ Batman.”

“Well,” Kory said, “maybe he’s not anymore.”

Mar’i’s heart dropped. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Are you okay, Mar’i?”

Mar’i paused before answering. “Yeah. Listen, I already told dad, but I’m going to be staying here for a little while. Until Grandpa’s feeling better. I’m going to drop by at some point and pick up some clothes, because I don’t really have much here. I’ll talk to you later okay?”

“Alright, my Starshine.”

Her parents’ affectionate nickname for her made her mouth curl into a smile. “I’ll see you. Love you.”

“Love you too, honey.”

“Bye, Mom.”

“Bye.”

Mar’i hung up before they got stuck saying goodbye for ten minutes.

Ordinarily, she’d go and find Alfred and talk out some of her feelings with him, but he was on duty at the hospital. The next thing she would do would be to get in some training, but she was way too tired for that.

Instead of doing any of that, changed into a pair of sweats that she could substitute for pajamas, and got into bed to sleep properly.

She was still a little tightly wound from everything that had happened in the past day, but talking to her mother put her at ease enough to get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's probably been evident but I'm playing around with the universe a little. Sorry everyone, but I figure Jason probably wouldn't have gotten saved by Talia and put in the Pit because she had Damian already. Also Jake exists. And I also drew from BTAS a little and had Dick quit being Nightwing (obviously).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is still acting tense around Mar'i. Neither one of them are very good at communicating.

The Manor seemed empty without Alfred in the kitchen, or dusting while really trying to eavesdrop on conversations. 

Mar’i was considering cooking something for everyone, but Alfred generally only kept things that were relatively tricky to make--she had no idea how to make beef Wellington--and breakfast food. 

After a few seconds of rummaging through the fridge, Mar’i heard footsteps approaching the kitchen from the hallway. 

“Hey, Mar’i!”

She spun away from the fridge to find Nell laden with boxes of pizza and a plastic bag full of bottles of soda.

“Oh X’hal, let me help you,” Mar’i fussed as she flew over to her and took two of the boxes off the stack. “Um, are we having a party?”

Nell blew a piece of hair out of her face as she placed the boxes on the counter. “No, but I heard about the old man and I know that people usually bring people like, food and stuff when someone gets sick, but I don’t know how to cook. So, pizzas.”

Mar'i helped herself to a piece and leaned against the counter.

“How is the big guy?” Nell asked softly.

“Oh, you know. He's fine, really, they're just observing him for now.” 

“How long before things go back to normal?”

Mar'i shot her a sad look, and Nell’s face darkened. “That's not good.”

“It’s his new medicine. He won't be able to fight anymore.” Mar'i didn't even feel sad anymore when she talked about it, she just felt tired.

“I mean, also, he had a heart attack. Like, I'm pretty sure people with heart problems aren't supposed to go on roller coasters, never mind get shot at on purpose by crazy people.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mar’i hummed. “But you know he would've done it anyway.”

“Maybe it's better this way,” Nell speculated.

Mar'i didn't answer. She would never be able to see a silver lining to her grandfather's heart attack.

“Where’s Damian?” Nell asked after a few moments of silence.

Mar’i shrugged. “I don’t know, and I really don’t care.”

Nell appraised her for a few moments. “You know his dad has a heart attack, right?”

There was so much that Nell didn’t know. Mar’i had the overwhelming urge to tell her everything that had happened since  _ that  _ night, but it was too much right now. “Yeah,” she countered, “but my  _ grandfather _ had a heart attack, too. He could’ve come to me, or talked to me about it, but instead he’s being a huge jerk.”

“Yeah, but, you know how he gets when something  _ slightly _ stressful happens.”

Mar’i glared at her friend. “Why are you taking his side?”

Nell’s curls bounced as she shook her head. “I’m not. I’m just saying, he always gets like this. Don’t take it personally.”

Only it  _ was _ personal, this time. This was not how someone treated someone else when they had their dick in them  _ hours _ ago.

She wouldn’t be able to make Nell understand without going into the whole thing, so she backed off. “Listen, I’m not going to be able to make patrol tonight.”

“Got homework or something?”

“No. I’m going to be staying here to help look after Grandpa, but I didn’t bring enough clothes with me. I have to run home and pick some up.”

“Oh, cool. You taking the train back?”

Mar’i groaned. “I guess.”

“Dude,” Nell scoffed, “borrow one of the old man’s cars, he has like, thirty.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. Not without his permission.” Mar’i had gotten her driver’s license in high school along with everyone else, but since her family only owned one car she really didn’t drive much, and she wasn’t comfortable driving one of Bruce’s luxury sports cars.

“Call the hospital and ask, then.” Nell grabbed another slice of pizza out of the box behind them.

Mar’i blushed. She was running out of excuses. “No, I don’t want to bother him with that while he’s getting better.

“Then ask Damian,” Nell advised around a mouthful of pizza.

“Ask Damian  _ what _ ?”

“Nothing,” Mar’i said quickly as Damian walked through the archway into the kitchen. 

Damian grunted at her, seeming annoyed, and he reached between the girls to take a slice of pizza for himself. 

“You brought this?” he asked Nell as he turned to get a plate to put it on.

“Yeah. To help out a little.”

“Thanks.”

Mar’i felt incredibly awkward as Damian joined them at the kitchen counter. She wasn’t sure if it was just her or if Damian was feeling it too, because he wasn’t saying anything, and he kept sneaking glances at her that he thought she wouldn’t notice.

He  _ still _ was not talking to her, though, and she became so annoyed with the whole situation that she had to excuse herself. 

“I’m gonna head back to my room,” she said, and she brushed dust from the pizza crust off her fingers over the sink. She stopped herself on her way out of the kitchen and addressed Damian, and as she did she felt her heart beating fast. 

“By the way,” she started, and a wave of cold chills washed over her as he raised his eyes to look at her, unflinching. “I’m not going out on patrol tonight. I have things to do.”

His eyes seemed paler and icier than usual as he looked straight into her own eyes, and she thought she might have seen his eyebrows twitch together for a moment, like he was confused, but he simply said, “Alright.”

She turned quickly and lifted into the air, flying toward her room. It felt like she’d lost at something.

Mar'i landed at the threshold of her room and let herself flop onto her bed.

She shouldn't be so upset. It had only been, what, a week that they'd been seeing each other.

It just felt like she lost the potential of something great.

She let herself feel bad for about ten more minutes and then she flew over to Bruce's garage.

Bruce had a massive amount of money, everyone knew that. He also tried really hard to seem like he lived the way a superrich billionaire would live.

One of the “hobbies” he'd picked up in an effort to do that was collecting cars. Bruce must have had some interest in cars, because he designed the Batmobile and a bunch of other vehicles to be pretty sick, but Mar'i knew his collection didn't really mean that much to him. He didn't even like to drive.

The garage was organized by sections. First there was antique cars, and Mar'i suspected he kept them at the front so he could show them off more easily on tours, whenever he gave them. Then there was the collectibles. Mar'i didn't know almost anything about cars, but she knew that he had a DeLorean, like from  _ Back to the Future _ . And then, from what she could tell, were just some really nice cars, the sport cars, she could tell, from the streamlined looks, the Italian names on the back of moat of them, and the simple fact that most of them were convertibles.

There really wasn't anything  _ driveable _ here.

She sighed. Even if she was inclined to drive one of these fancy little cars, she didn't know where the keys were.

She approached a yellow car with a black stripe down the middle and ran her hand along it. She couldn't imagine herself driving this, and it seemed to be one of the simpler ones. Maybe she  _ should  _ take the train home. 

“What are you doing?”

Damian startled her so badly that she actually lit a starbolt when she turned to face him.

He was not impressed.

“Nothing,” she said, and she extinguished the star energy swirling around her hand.

“Nothing?” he repeated doubtfully.

“Yeah,” she said, annoyed that he was acting like she had no right to be here. Her grandfather gave her full range of the Manor, and Damian couldn't banish her from the garage just because they were fighting, or whatever. “What are  _ you _ doing here?”

“There are motion sensors in here that I can access from my phone. I got a notification that was someone was in here. Thought it was a break-in, but I guess it's just you.”

That made Mar’i so angry, it felt like all of her nerves were on fire. She wanted to light a starbolt again and throw it right at his face.

“Yep,” she said, the words scathing as they left her mouth.  _ “Just  _ me. So sorry to disappoint you. Do you want me to go find a bank robber or a rapist off the street that you'd rather spend some time with?”

He looked taken aback when she said it, and he furrowed his eyebrows in a way that looked something between angry and confused.

“Mar’i, I assure you that is not what I meant.”

“Yeah, whatever.” 

She went to leave in a huff, but as she stormed past him, he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“What were you doing in here?” he asked.

She was still angry at him, but she let him hold onto her wrist because it was the first time in almost a full day that he wasn't ignoring her, and she liked the feeling of his fingers closed gently but firmly around her skin.

“I need to go back home.”

He didn't answer, and since Mar'i stubbornly refused to face him, she couldn't gauge his reaction very well. She sighed and tugged her arm away from him.

“To pick up some clothes, I mean. I already told my parents that I'm staying here for a little while.”

Now she was facing him, but it was still hard to read him. He was good at masking his emotions. 

“You wanted to borrow a car? Can you even drive?”

What a jerk.

“Yes,” she snapped, “I just don't have my own car, thank you very much.”

“You’re not driving any of these.” Damian directed her toward the entrance with a hand on her back. “We keep the regular cars in the garage out front.”

She waved his hand away and fell into stride next to him. “I wasn't sure if Grandpa wanted me messing with his everyday cars--”

“He doesn't,” Damian said flatly. “And you're not. I'll drive you to Bludhaven.”

“Um--” Mar'i stammered. She didn't really want to be trapped in a car with Damian for the hour-long round trip to Bludhaven and back.

“I'm not extending this offer for very long, so hurry up, Grayson.”

The rain had picked up since Mar'i saw it outside her window, but Damian didn't seem to care. He left her standing in Bruce’s huge garage as he made his way to the front of the house, the hood from his sweatshirt the only thing shielding him from the rain.

After letting out an exasperated sigh that was really more of a growl, Mar’i set out after him.

There was room for four cars in the garage, although only three were parked just then. One, Mar’i recognized, was with Alfred at Gotham General.

There was a fancy silver car, with doors that lifted vertically and Mar'i couldn't actually picture being driven. A tiny red convertible and a sleek black car remained.

“We'll take the Mercedes,” Damian said, as though that would mean anything to her. He pushed back his hood and adjusted his wet hair with his fingers. “The black one,” he clarified at her blank look.

He studied her, his green eyes sharply contrasting with his wet hair and dark hoodie, and it made fireworks explode inside her blood.

But she was still angry at him.

“Maybe I'll just take the train,” she sighed. “It's raining pretty hard and we'll get your car dirty.”

“Grayson, get in the car,” he commanded with a roll of his eyes.

“Damian, X’hal, I don't  _ want _ to!” Mar’i shouted, her annoyance cresting and crashing violently down on him.

He frowned at her. “Why not?”

He was so  _ frustrating _ . “You've been ignoring me for almost a whole day now,” she snapped. “Do you know how insulting that is?”

“I wasn't ignoring you,” he said softly, and his voice had a sulky tone. “I was just--I was trying to--”

Mar'i almost felt bad for him. Living with Bruce, he didn't get much of a chance to talk about his feelings, and he did seem to be trying to come up with some explanation.

She interrupted him, partly to spare him from his own awkward stammering. “One minute we're having sex, the next it's like ‘okay, don't talk to me anymore, I'm angry’.”

He glared at her. “I  _ was  _ angry. I still am.”

“At me? What in X’hal’s name did  _ I _ do? Please, tell me, because if it was something  _ so bad _ that you just  _ ignore _ me for hours after--”

“I don't want to talk about this,” he growled. “Take the damn train to Bludhaven, stay there for all I care.”

“Oh, no.” Mar’i flew over so she was between him and the open garage door. “ _ You _ made  _ me _ come in here, and I know that you knew I was pissed because you're suddenly trying to do me this huge favor. You can't just leave because you don't want to talk about your feelings.

He almost looked like a cornered animal. Which was ridiculous, because he was the one trying to corner her in the first place.

“Fine,” he said, after a few moments of silence. “I'm pissed that we were--” he paused and averted gaze, his face turning red-- “having sex--” After he got those words out, he flicked his eyes back to hers, but his face was still bright red. “While my father was having a heart attack. It should've been me helping him, not Drake.”

Mar'i was speechless for a moment. She had never even considered that he could've been upset about that.

“That is so stupid,” she said. “There's no way we could've known that would happen. It's not like we did something we weren't supposed to.”

“It's not stupid,” he insisted. “This is just a distraction, and the work that I do is too important for distractions.”

“So what are you gonna do? Deprive yourself of sex for the rest of your life?”

“I considered it.”

“Well let me tell you, you'll be miserable if you do that. The problem is not sex, the problem is that you have your head so far up your ass that you can't see that these two things are completely unrelated.” Damian didn't have a comeback for that, so she continued. “If we weren't  _ busy _ , what would you have done? Gone up to his room with him? Sat and talked for hours and hours?”

He leaned back against the silver car, eyes cast down. He looked uncomfortable, and Mar'i felt a pang of sympathy shoot up among her impatience.

The sound of thick waterfalls of rainwater slapping the driveway behind her filled her ears as Damian reflected. “I just feel so guilty.”

“Okay,” Mar'i said, stepping away from the door toward him. “But you can't take it out on me.”

He nodded in agreement. He extended his arm out to her and she slid her fingers into his hand and let him pull her into him.

It was a huge relief, not fighting with Damian anymore. She wasn't quite happy with him yet, but he was trying, and that counted for something. 

He held her against him, one hand at her hip, one hand gently rubbing up and down her spine. They stayed like that for a few seconds before he let her go.

“Are you ready? If we leave now we can be back before midnight.”

Mar'i paused before answering. Now that they weren't fighting, the trip would be less of a hassle, and probably more enjoyable. And she did need to get some things, some books for school and some clothes.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let's go.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash flood alerts, tense talks with parents, Mar'i's childhood bedroom.

The farther south they traveled, the heavier the rain seemed to get. When they were finally coming up on their exit, Mar’i’s phone let out a high pitched screeching sound.

“Be careful,” she told Damian as she read from her phone's screen. “There’s a flash flood alert in Bludhaven.”

“What? Should I turn around?”

“No don't worry about it. We live on the west side of town, not near the docks or the beach. There shouldn't be any flooding near us.”

Damian grunted in response. Rain was pouring down from the sky in buckets, and the radio had been drowned out from the constant sound of rain on the windshield and the deep rhythmic thud of the wipers as they swung back and forth rapidly.

Once they exited the parkway, all the roads were soaked, and on the sides of the streets by the curb, water was pooled several inches deep. Damian’s car was spraying walls of water over sidewalks as they drove.

They reached Mar’i’s house and Damian parked his car in front of her yard. Her house was on the top of a street that sloped downward, so there wasn’t much water to avoid.

“Mar’i,” Damian said as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “Just be fast. This looks bad, and I don’t want to be stuck here for the night.”

“It’s fine,” Mar’i mumbled, although she was beginning to realize that this storm was getting a little extreme. The wind was fierce, whipping her hair around as she stood. She wasn’t supposed to fly outside of her Nightstar costume, but it was so rainy that no one would notice, and she wanted to avoid getting her feet wet. Her running shoes that she  managed to find in her room at the Manor weren’t very waterproof.

Her house, like many houses in Bludhaven, had a long set of stairs that let up to the entrance on the second floor. She fumbled around for her keys in her pocket and when she pushed the door out of the latch, it swung open from the wind.

“Hello?” Mar’i called. She stopped in the foyer and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was soaked, rainwater splattered all over her. It looked like she’d walked into a sprinkler.

“Mar’i?” Her mother’s voice was mixed with concern, and she appeared in the foyer to greet her. “We weren’t expecting you tonight. The weather is terrible.”

“It’s not that bad in Gotham,” Mar’i said with a shrug. “I’m just here to grab the rest of my books and some clothes.”

Kory frowned. “Mar’i, you’re not driving back to Gotham in this.”

“Mom, I have to. Damian drove me. He’s outside.” Mar’i gestured to their front door, and her mother peered out of it at the Mercedes.

“Damian can sleep on the couch and drive you back to Gotham in the morning when it’s safe.”

Mar’i’s heart skipped a beat. They’d just fought, and he was going to be so mad at her. “He wants to get back to Gotham. I’ll stay and take the train in tomorrow, but he’s going to want to go back.”

“Let me call your father,” Kory said, and she disappeared down the hall. 

“What--he’s not home yet?”

“He stayed late a few hours to make sure the night shift is set up for the storm. He’ll be home tonight.” Kory reappeared, her phone ringing against her ear.

Mar’i glanced out the door. This was so  _ not _ what she had planned.

“Hi, honey,” Kory said into the phone after her father’s muffled voice answered. “Everything’s fine here, no flooding in our yard. Listen, Mar’i just came in. No, she drove. She wants to go back, but I told her-- Okay, hang on.” Kory lifted the phone from her ear and held it out to Mar’i. “He wants to talk to you.”

Mar’i groaned and took the phone. “Dad?”

“Mar’i, you can’t go back to Gotham tonight.”

“You know that Bruce is in the hospital, so I don’t even know why you’re wasting your time talking to me about this. You know I’ll do what I have to to make sure he’s okay, even if it means--”

“No, Starshine,” her father interrupted, his voice urgent. “I just got the page a few minutes ago. A tree fell on the entry ramp to the parkway. We’re blocking off the street but the tree can’t be removed until tomorrow when this wind dies down.”

Mar’i paused. “We’ll drive through Bludhaven and get on the parkway in--”

“Bludhaven’s flooding. Our neighborhood should be fine, but downtown and the East side are having huge problems. You can’t drive through the streets.”

“So, we’re stuck here,” Mar’i said dully. Damian was going to be pissed.

“I know that you’re upset with me, but this isn’t about me keeping you here. I’m sorry.”

Mar’i sighed. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”

“You drove down here?” Dick asked.

“Well--Damian actually drove me, since you know, I don’t drive that much and--”

“ _ Damian’s  _ with you?” Dick paused for a few moments. “Okay. Have him park the car in the garage and your mother will get him set up for the night. It’s not safe to drive back right now. Make sure he knows that.”

“Okay.” Mar’i was surprised that her dad wasn’t more upset, but she could tell that he was more worried than anything else.

“I love you. I’ll talk to you when I get home.”

“Okay, dad. Love you, too.” Mar’i handed the phone back to her mother. “I’m going to go get Damian.”

The wind felt much more fierce now that she knew how much damage it had caused. She flew back down to the car and sat in the passenger seat. 

“Where’s your things?” Damian asked, confused. 

Mar’i bit her lip nervously and leaned over the gear shift to kiss him. He was a little non-receptive, but she hoped that he at least knew that she was sorry. “Okay, listen. We can’t get back to Gotham. My dad’s at work now and he told me that a tree fell down so we can’t get back on the parkway, and apparently the rest of Bludhaven is flooded so we can’t just get on at the next town.”

Damian was silent for a few moments, but his expression was completely blank, and Mar’i couldn’t guess what he was thinking. “Alright,” he said, and he cut the engine.

“Wait, you’re not mad?”

“I can’t say that I’m happy. But Cassandra was trying to convince me that I needed the night off, and I  _ am _ looking forward to meeting your father.”

Mar’i’s heart flipped. He wanted to meet her dad? That was a little  _ too _ serious for her. She didn’t know what to say.

He must have been able to read her expression, because he explained, “Your father was the first Robin. There must be so much that he could tell me. I’ve probably read it all, but it would be different, hearing it from his mouth.”

“Oh, X’hal,” Mar’i groaned. “No, no, no. You  _ cannot _ talk about that stuff with him. He will absolutely freak out. Just having you in the house is gonna make him jumpy.”

Damian furrowed his brows at her.

“Just try to be Damian Wayne, heir to Wayne Enterprises. Talk about work or something. But don’t bring up any bad guys or training or anything about the League. It’s probably better if you don’t talk about Tim, Steph, or Cass either, and he knows that Grandpa is in the hospital but don’t talk about him too much because when I talk about Grandpa, Dad gets really snippy and--”

“I get it,” Damian said dryly.

Mar’i bit her lip again. He was upset, she could tell, and she wanted to say that she was sorry, but how could she apologize for her own father?

In order for Damian to get the car in the garage, Mar’i needed to manually open it for him. Rain was pouring down in sheets so thick she could hardly see the numbers on the keypad. 

They were both soaked when they made it inside, their clothes hanging limply off their frames, hair slick with rain.

Kory was waiting for them in the foyer with a towel in each arm.

It was almost painfully awkward. They'd gone from being interrupted in the middle of sex to fighting to having just made up, and now Damian was meeting her mother. It was enough to make Mar’i almost want to die.

“Thank you,” Damian said curtly as he took a towel.

“It’s freezing out there,” Kory fussed as Mar’i took the remaining towel and tried to dry off her hair. “I had Jake put the fire on in the den, so it'll be warm. And I have these for you, Damian.” Kory produced a pair of gray sweatpants Mar’i recognized as her father’s jogging pants and a Bludhaven PD t-shirt for Damian.

“It's nice to meet you,” Kory said to Damian once he'd finished toweling off what could be salvaged. “I've heard a lot about you from Mar'i.” She beamed at him, looking truly glad to have him there, and it gave Mar'i a foreboding feeling about how her father would receive him.

Her parents had a habit of playing good-cop bad-cop when it came to her boyfriends. So many awkward dinners at restaurants in downtown Bludhaven were spent with her mother complimenting whichever poor guy Mar’i had taken out, being overly sweet and interested in his life, while her father scowled at him and asked scathing questions about their education and family lives.

Not that her parents could possibly view him as a boyfriend-type figure, but he was definitely someone her father believed she needed to be protected from.

Damian was looking at her curiously, probably wondering what sort of things she'd told her parents about him.

“It's very nice to meet you as well, Mrs. Grayson. Your home is lovely.”

Mar'i had to stifle a smile. He was turning on the charm, something he rarely put in the effort to do. Which meant that he wanted her mother to like him.

“Thank you, dear.” Kory’s smile reached her eyes, although it didn't take much for her mother to see the best in a person. “Mar'i can show you to the downstairs bathroom, and once you change out of those clothes I'll put them in the laundry.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Mar'i put a hand on Damian's shoulder and led him to the stairs. 

Their house, like many of the houses in Bludhaven, was set up so that the second floor was the main floor. The kitchen, formal living room, dining room, and her parent’s room were located on the second floor, which was accessible due to the long flight of stairs leading to the front door. Since she’d been more involved in her grandfather’s life, Mar’i couldn’t help but think that all the stairs would be hard on Bruce’s knees. 

They descended the stairs. It always smelled a bit like rain on the first floor when it was stormy, and it was a nice, familiar feeling after being away for so long.

“The bathroom’s down the hall, second door on the left,” Mar’i instructed as she handed Damian his wet clothes. 

He nodded as he took the pile of clothes, and Mar’i suddenly had a powerful desire to kiss him. The rain had soaked his hair, which was usually styled carefully and neatly, and strands were hanging over his eyes. It made him look uncharacteristically messy and, Mar'i thought, very sexy. 

Of course, her parents would absolutely flip out, so she swallowed past the feeling and poked her head into the den as he made his way down the hall.

Kory had set up the couch for Damian to sleep on already, a pillow fluffed and propped against the armrest and a woolen blanket folded at the opposite end. Sitting smack in the middle of the couch, feet up on the boxy coffee table, was her younger brother. 

“Jake, go back to your room. Damian’s sleeping in here.”

Jake turned to scowl at her. “It’s only eight o’clock, nobody goes to sleep this early.”

“Come on Jake, he needs the room.”

“Dad’s not gonna like having him here,” Jake said as he threw the remote down on the couch.

“Dad can get over it.” 

“Yeah, you  _ would _ say that.” His tone was sulky, and he slipped past her into the hallway without making eye contact.

She should let it go. Her eleven year old brother spent most of his entire existence aggravating her and starting arguments, and she could tell when he was baiting her.

She couldn’t help herself. “What is  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

“You go away for, like, weeks at a time. It puts mom and dad in really bad moods, not that you care, because you’re in Gotham and don’t have to deal with them.”

“Mom and dad just have to get used to me being a normal college kid. And so do you.”

“You’re  _ not _ a normal college kid. And neither is he.” Jake tipped his head toward the bathroom. “That’s what pisses them off so much. You’re not normal and you never have been, and instead of just accepting that and trying to blend in, you find Grandpa in Gotham and you start acting like him.”

Mar’i frowned. Her brother had a much different childhood than Mar’i, and he wanted to be just like their father. Which was great and all, but he was always tattling on her when he was younger, helping their parents make her life harder. 

They were both half-Tamaranean, but Jake wasn’t as noticeably different as Mar’i. Mar’i had inherited her mother’s hair texture, skin tone, eye coloring, and powers. Jake had somehow escaped all of that. Any time Mar’i had gotten sick as a child, she needed to be rushed to STAR labs at their Gotham branch, because her physiology wasn’t something a normal doctor could understand. Jake never had to go through that.

Maybe she did stay away from home for days at a time, and yeah, she was doing dangerous stuff, but when she was Nightstar was the only time she wasn’t hiding in plain sight.

Besides, she  _ always  _ texted her parents and let them know how she was doing.

“Jake,” Mar’i said, and although she had meant to sound menacing, she just sounded tired. “Go to your room.”

He did, and he made a big show by slamming the door behind him.

Mar’i sighed, deep and long, to collect herself. Damian had finished changing and she could sense him standing behind her, although she wasn't sure how long he'd been there. She pulled a tight smile onto her face and spun to face him. His brow was furrowed and he was studying ger closely.

“Younger brothers,” she said with a weak smile and a laugh.

“I wouldn't know,” he answered, still seeming deep in thought.

“Don't worry about Jake or my dad.” For some reason, her gaze fell when she said it. 

“I'm not,” he said.

She could sense that there was more to his statement, but she was feeling uncomfortable so she changed the subject.

“Wanna see my room?”

Her room was actually smaller than the guest bedroom that had become her room at the Manor, but then, the entire first floor could fit in the foyer, so Damian must have expected that.

The four poster full-sized bed took up most of the room. The walls were decorated with various posters, some which had been hanging since she was in middle school.

“Is that a Superboy poster?” Damian’s voice was a mixture of mirth and disgust.

“Oh. Yeah. He's my age and he's an alien. Before I knew a lot about Grandpa and my dad’s past, I thought it was cool that there was another teenage alien on the planet.”

“Tt. How unpleasant,” Damian grumbled as he fiddled with his wet hair.

A grin pulled at Mar’i’s cheeks. He was  _ jealous _ . “Oh stop, it wasn't like that.”

A single eyebrow arched at her, but he let the issue die. 

Mar’i flopped onto her bed and scooted so that she was laying on one said. “Come here,” she said. “But turn off the light first.”

He hesitated, but did as he was told. Once he was laying next to her, she pointed up at her ceiling, where several hundred tiny glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck. “Mom and I put those up years ago. She took the time to make actual constellations, and right above us is Lyra. And the star all the way to the right is Vega.”

She snuck a quick glance at him to confirm that he was actually looking, and once she saw that he seemed interested, she continued.

“I've never been to Tamaran, but it's up there. It's interesting, the name Vega actually comes from an Arabic phrase, not a greek one. But, you studied astronomy, I'm sure you know that.”

She was starting to ramble, but she was interrupted by Damian’s hand on her hip as he rolled on his side to kiss her. She hesitated--they were at her house, in the room she'd slept in since Jake was born, kissing her father’s estranged guardian’s biological son, and her father would be home any moment--but he drew her close with a hand under her chin, and she wanted to finally be swept up in another kiss, so she let him press into her.

Just as things were starting to get good, a knock at Mar’i’s door stilled them.

“Dad’s home,” Jake told them through her door.

Mar'i sighed and sank into her bed. “I'll be back. You can just stay in here.”

Damian frowned at her, but she shrugged in reply. As she exited her room, she pulled the door closed behind her.

Her father, still dressed in his work clothes, tie loosened and hanging limply from his collar, was already downstairs. He probably meant to talk to her in her room. 

“Hi, Dad. How was work?”

Dick frowned at her. “Your mother tells me Damian will be staying the night.”

“Yeah. I didn't mean for that to happen. I wanted to get some things to take back to the Manor. But it's raining like crazy.”

“Mar’i,” her father said, and he lowered his voice. “I really don't want him in my house. Especially with your brother here.”

“That's a little harsh, don't you think?”

Dick gestured to the den to offer a bit more privacy, and Mar'i floated in, impatient already with the conversation.

“Mar'i, he's killed people.”

She rolled her eyes at him “So’ve you. And that was years ago. Before he'd even met Grandpa.”

“You  _ knew _ about that?”

“What, the League of Assassins backstory? Yeah, he told me. You thought you were going to surprise me with that?”

“You shouldn't have brought him here. You know how I feel about…  _ that, _ nevermind the fact that his mother practically runs the League.”

“He's a good person. He cares about people.”

Dick shot her a doubtful look.

“Okay, you know what, this is really upsetting me. You don't like Damian, I won't bring him around anymore. Your house, your rules. Sorry I didn't check in first, but I wasn't planning on staying overnight.” Mar’i was getting frustrated, not to mention tired, so she lifted into the air again with the intention of returning to her room.

“That's the other problem.”

Mar'i stilled, and she crossed her arms over her chest moodily.

“You've barely been home since you started doing…  _ that _ . You're in Gotham more often than not.”

“So?”

“Your family misses you,” her father said, his voice soft, expression sad.

Mar'i landed, giving him her full attention. “Honestly dad, I miss you guys, too. But it's more because I miss the way things were.”

There was an awkward silence between them. Her father's expression shifted multiple times, but she had a hard time pinning down any particular one to interpret it.

“You used to encourage me to do what I wanted to do. School, sports, clubs. But now all you ever do is try to keep me from doing things. It's like I don't know who you are anymore,” she explained. 

“That's because what you want to do is incredibly dangerous.” Her father paused. “And it's pointless.”

A small fire sparked to life in Mar’i’s stomach. It was like he was trying to bait her. “It's not  _ pointless _ . That's like saying cops are pointless.”

“I used to think that, too,” Dick said earnestly. His voice was calm but quick, and Mar'i got the feeling he was purposely using a soft tone to try to calm her. “That your grandfather was protecting people from a new class of evil. But what was the biggest threat when your grandfather was growing up? Joe Chill? But now there's a whole world of Jokers and Riddlers and Poison Ivys.”

“You know who else wasn't here when Grandpa was growing up?” The words came out hotly, and Mar'i was almost excited to throw them in her father's face. “Starfire. And Nightstar.”

Her father's expression darkened. 

“I don't even want to argue with you about the logistics of which came first, the Batman or the Joker. But I'm sick of trying to explain to you that I belong with Batman. Maybe not full time, maybe not forever. But it's  _ important  _ to me that I do this, and I don't need you to be okay with that, because it's pretty clear that you don't understand.”

She thought she might've actually gotten through to him. His eyes searched hers for a long time, and he finally said, “You belong here. With your family. And with me. My Starshine.”

She physically recoiled at the use of her nickname from when she was a kid. It hurt, thinking of how much she'd adored her father then, and how they'd grown apart when she was in high school, to now, when she couldn't remember the last time they'd talked that didn't end in a confrontation.

Tears stung at her eyes, although she wasn't sad as much as she was emotionally exhausted. “How can I belong with you when you hardly know who I am anymore.”

Dick flinched, a quick facial grimace that she almost lost in the dim lighting of the den. “I do know who you are. You're my daughter. Stubborn as ever, with a giving heart.”

She shook her head. “That's not what I mean. I mean that you  _ can't  _ know who I am, because  _ I _ hardly know, and you've been trying pretty damn hard to stop me from finding out.”

Her father glanced away, probably trying to scramble for something to say, but before he was able to gather his thoughts, a crack of lightning sounded almost directly behind booming thunder, and the house was plunged into darkness.

“X’hal,” Mar’i muttered, then she lit a starbolt in her open hand, pink light shimmering around the room.

Her father had already made his way to Jake’s bedroom door, and Mar’i could hear her mother calling her father from upstairs.

“Mar’i, some light?” her father called from Jake's room.

She floated over to the doorway, pink light flowing into her brother’s room, but Jake scowled at her. 

“I don't need that,” he said, and he rifled through the top drawer of his nightstand and produced a lighter that he used to light a candle on his desk.

“You're welcome,” Mar'i huffed sarcastically, and she stepped past her father out of Jake's room.

“Jake, be nice to your sister,” Dick admonished. “And be careful with that candle.”

“Dick? I think the whole street’s out,” Kory called from upstairs.

Illuminated by the glow from her starbolt, Mar'i could see her father glance up the stairs, then back at her. “Are we…?”

“It's fine, Dad. We'll talk later. I'm just gonna head to bed.”

He paused, and Kory called him again from the main floor.

“Better go see what Mom needs,” she said.

She floated to her door and pushed it open, expecting Damian to already have lit the scented candles she kept around her room, or to somehow have restored power just to her bedroom, but instead he was scrolling through some app on his phone. He seemed relaxed, his head pillowed on his arm behind him, legs hanging off the mattress as though he'd been sitting and was too lazy to move onto the bed before laying down.

Going for her favorite candle, vanilla and plum blossom, she held her starbolt close enough that the wick caught fire. Then she doused the starbolt so she could have free use of both hands, and she lit some tealight candles that she'd had in case the power went out and spread them around the room.

When she turned her attention to Damian, he was watching her.

“Things go okay with your dad?”

She shrugged. She didn't want to talk about it. She was sure that he could hear the whole conversation anyway. Jake probably heard it too.

Instead she pulled on his wrist until he was sitting on the edge of her bed, then she positioned herself between his knees and pressed her lips against his.

At first, she started simply, enjoying the soft press of his mouth against hers, breathing in his breath. But she quickly grew tired of that, and she clambered onto the bed, straddling his lap.

Damian followed her lead, his hands gripping the back of her thighs, pulling her close so that she was positioned directly over a certain area. 

Maybe they would get to make up for the last time--if it could be counted as a time.

They had to be quiet. Technically, what they were doing was all in secret, so they always had to be quiet, but this had a much different feeling than at the Manor. Mar’i’s house was much smaller, her parents much noisier than anyone at the Manor, and her brother was a few layers of wall away.

Mar’i focused on shifting her hips as she kissed him, her hair creating a curtain around them. Their shirts were discarded before long, and Damian broke the kiss to lay back.

She trailed kisses over his chest, down the muscles of his abdomen, her heart kicking with every strain she felt beneath her lips.

Once she undid the zipper, he lifted his hips to help her pull off his pants. As she did, she keeled between his knees.

Freeing his cock clock revealed how hard he'd become, somewhat of a surprise after the restriction of his expensive denim jeans. She leaned down and ran her tongue up the shaft, his skin warm against her mouth. Once she reached the head she opened her mouth and took as much of it in as she could, not quite reaching the base.

She pumped her head up and down a few times, running her tongue over his length as she did, but it wasn't long before Damian stilled her with a hand in her hair. “Stop,” he said, softly but intently.

“Hm?” Mar’i kept her lips around the tip but raised her eyes to look at him. He tightened his hand in her hair and tugged until she released him.

“That's not what I want right now.” His voice had a gravelly, thick quality that made her heart kick. 

“And what do you want?” she asked, and of course she knew the answer already.

He moved quickly, grasping her arms and pulling her over him, then pinning her below him. His hands raked over her, desperate and needy, and she could barely breathe over the intensity of his actions.

He pulled her shirt over her head and without bothering to remove her bra first, he freed one of her breasts from the cup. His tongue, warm and soft, found her nipple. Mar’i stifled her moans, keeping them soft and encouraging, loud enough to encourage Damian and soft enough that they were for his ears only. His hands busied themselves with the clasp of her bra while his mouth was occupied, and as soon as he'd undone the clasp he paused to gaze at her.

“You are so…” he let his voice trail off as he seemed to be searching for words. A twitch of his cock against her thigh and he seemed to swallow a groan. “So fucking hot,” he finished, and he dropped his hand to unbutton her shorts.

She helped him pull them off, and after sliding them down to her knees he pushed her panties to the side, revealing the lips of her pussy, and he brushed his finger against her.

She was quite wet at this point, and she rocked her hips, creating more friction between them.

“X’hal, Damian,” she gasped, trying desperately to keep her voice low. He quickly located her clit and rubbed quick circles against it, starting gently but increasing pressure as she responded.

Heat mounted in her lower belly, her hips jerking into his hand despite her attempts to lay still.

“Damian,” she breathed, and her voice resembled a whine more than she had intended. “I need you."

Apparently, he hadn't needed to hear much more than that. His shaft was at her entrance and she helped him guide it into place.

He groaned as he entered her, and Mar'i bit her lip to keep quiet. It occurred to her, suddenly, that this was as far as they'd gotten I'm their previous attempt, and she suddenly grew nervous.

Damian rocked into her, and she gripped his shoulders. He was going slowly, trying to find a good depth, and she got the feeling that he was nervous, too. Her nerves were still on fire from his previous ministrations, and she quickly grew tired of a slow pace.

“More,” she panted, and she pressed her lips against his shoulder to keep quiet as he complied.

She didn't last long. Her orgasm overtook her suddenly, and Damian fucked her through it. He had taken up a quick pace, the delicious friction drawing it out, and by the time it subsided she was so dizzy from pleasure that it took her a moment to realize that he was still going.

“I'm almost--" he groaned, interrupting himself. “Almost--" he punctuated his statement by thrusting deep inside her, rolling his hips a last time against her.

When he finished he laid his head against her chest, still inside her. They were both breathing fast, Damian’s forehead coated in sweat.

This was the point where she would tell her ex boyfriend that she loved him, but she decided instead to brush her fingers through his hair as they settled into the plush blankets.


End file.
